MICHAEL MACGARRY

(b. 1978 Durban, South Africa)

‘I am increasingly drawn to the narrative capacity of objects – especially those repurposed from my immediate surroundings, that morph from utility to aesthetic, through processes of grafting imaginary and visible realities – as embodying compound ideas and multiple antecedents (both formally and conceptually) yet are not manifest. That is, in fact, resistant to overt communication. A process that dissects the works from both myself and the sum of their parts, forcing them – sometimes quite violently – to exist on their own terms, robbed of their former utility, and given new responsibilities.’

Michael MacGarry is a multi-award winning visual artist and filmmaker based in Johannesburg. He holds a Master’s Degree in Fine Art from the University of the Witwatersrand, where he is currently a PhD. candidate (History of Art). MacGarry is a fellow of the Gordon Institute of Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA) at the University of Cape Town and a recipient of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award 2010.

Michael’s political and poetic oeuvre is realised across a diverse range of media - including sculpture, photography, installation and film. His focus is on the tension between marginalised and so-called centralised narratives; the postmodern micro and the modern macro in spaces where contemporary life is in a state of invention and flux.

Michael has exhibited internationally for more than ten years including TATE Modern, Guggenheim Bilbao, Kiasma Museum and Iziko South African National Gallery. He has published four monographs on his work. As a filmmaker, Michael has written and directed seven short films, having featured on more than 30 international film festivals and is a recipient of an El Ray Award - Excellence in Narrative Short Filmmaking (Barcelona Film Festival 2015), a finalist for the Huysmans Young African Filmmaker Award 2015 (Belgium) as well as Jury Awards from 19th VideoBrasil (Sao Paulo), K3 Internationales Film Festival (Austria) and 13th International Festival Signes de Nuit (Paris).

EDUCATION

2012  Fellow of the Gordon Institute of Performing and Creative Arts, at the University of Cape Town

2004  MFA (Distinction), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

2000  BFA (Cum Laude, Dean’s List), Technikon Natal, Durban, South Africa

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2022   

Genre pictures, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2021

Superstructure, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2018

A course sorting of the readily available, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

We are now, what you once were, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2017

SHOW NO PAIN, the collected film and video work of Michael MacGarry, Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa

2016

Between Rot and Genesis, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2015

There’s an Animal Inside, FNB Joburg Art Fair

2013

As Above, So Below, Centre for Democracy, Cape Town, South Africa

2012

The Other Half, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa

2011

Entertainment, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa

2010

END GAME, Standard Bank Young Artist Award 2010 (Visual Arts) Monument Gallery, Grahamstown, South Africa

This is your world in which we grow, and we will grow to hate you, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa

2008

When enough people start saying the same thing, Art Extra, Johannesburg, South Africa

2004

Or Until the World Improves, The Premises Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2023

What I Feel When I Think About The Cosmos, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

ARES, curated by Henry Hussey & Sophia Olver, Cromwell Place, London, UK

2022

3D in 2022, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

God of War, OHSH Projects, London, UK

Time is Going: Archive and future memories, curated by Azu Nwagbogu, EUNIC Senegal for  Dak'Art Biennale, Dakar, Senegal

2021

ARCOLisboa online, with Everard Read, Lisbon, Portugal

In Conversation, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2020

Matereality, curated by Andrea Lewis, Iziko SA National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Pentatonic Rubbernecking, with Jacob van Schalkwyk, GUS, Stellenbosch, South Africa

STILL, Everard Read online exhibition, South Africa

The Portrait Show, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2019

Still here tomorrow to high five you yesterday…, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa

Africa State of Mind, Museum of African Diaspora, San Francisco, USA; Royal West of England, UK

Academy, Bristol & Impressions Gallery, Bradford, UK

FNB Art Joburg, with Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

Chinafrika, curated by Jochen Becker, Kunstraum, Konfuzius Institut, Nurnberg, Germany

In the Belly of the Whale, with Dale Adcock, Transition, London, UK

2018

Making Africa, curated by Okwui Enwezor & Amelie Klein, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, USA

Flow of Forms, Völkerkundemuseum, Hamburg, Germany

2017

Off the wall, Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Another Antipodes, PS Art Space, Fremantle, Australia

2016

Sub-Sahara: Accelerated Urbanism in Africa, Tel Aviv, Museum of Art, Israel

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2015

Bronze, Steel & Stone, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

The Film Will Always Be You, TATE Modern, London, UK

Making Africa. A Continent of Contemporary Design, Curated by Okwui Enwezor and Amelie Klein, Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain

Africa: Architecture, Culture, Identity, Curated by Mathias Ussing Seeberg

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark

The Johannesburg Pavilion, During the 56th la Biennale di Venezia,Venice, Italy

Africa Salon, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

2014

Half-­Devil Half-­Child, Blank Projects, Cape Town, South Africa

Pop Goes the Revolution, The New Church, Cape Town, South Africa

2013

'MINE' – MC2a – MIGRATIONS CULTURELLES, Aquitaine Afriques, Bordeaux, France

2012

Impakt Festival, CBKU, Utrecht, Netherlands

Making Way: Contemporary Art from South Africa and China, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2011

Johannesburg Contested Terrains, Tate Modern, London, UK

ARS 11, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art Helsinki, Finland

2010

Ampersand, Damiler Art Collection, Berlin, Germany

Life Less Ordinary: Performance and display in South African art, Ffotogallery, Cardiff, UK

Forex: This is our time, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa

2009

Life Less Ordinary: Performance and display in South African art, Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham

Why Not?, Kuckei + Kuckei, Berlin, Germany

AWARDS & PROJECTS

Parabolas, public art commission, Meta Foundation, Johannesburg 2022

Wallpaper* magazine, April 2020 limited edition cover by Michael MacGarry, featuring Maputo, Mozambique 2050 – from the artist's 100 Suns series. 

Official Selection: Sea of Ash for Film Africa - the Royal African Society’s annual film festival - screened in competition for the Baobab Award for Best Short Film, 2016

Jury Award: Special Mention for Sea of Ash, 14th International Festival Zeichen der Nacht, Bangkok, Thailand 2016

El Ray Award -­ Excellence in Narrative Short Filmmaking, Barcelona Film Festival 2015

Jury Award: Special Mention for Excuse me while I disappear, 13th International Festival Signes de Nuit, Paris, France, 2015

Finalist Huysmans Young African Filmmaker Award 2015

Gordon Institute of Performing and Creative Arts Fellowship 2012

Standard Bank Young Artist Award (Visual Art) 2010

MTN New Contemporaries Award 2008

Full Merit Scholarship, University of the Witwatersrand 2005

National Arts Council Individual Artist Grant 2004

Dean’s Commendation 2000

COLLECTIONS

Iziko South African National Gallery Seattle Art Museum

Gordon Schachat Collection Hollard Collection

Wits Art Museum

South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) The New Church Museum

Standard Bank of South Africa Johannesburg Art Gallery Numerous private collections