Super Tomorrow (Untitled I)
Nkisi figure, concrete, rebar
600 x 300 mm
2016
Private collection
An ongoing sculpture series rendered in steel-reinforced concrete and found objects, function as pieces of corporeal architecture; body parts of buildings as secular shrines to progress and human civilisation, albeit through an optic of skeptical optimism.
The sculptures extend MacGarry’s practice of grafting micro materials to macro narratives within the structures of global capital, and more specifically as abstract registers of industrial progress and infrastructural development in key sub-Saharan African countries.
Super Tomorrow series
Institutional
R5 rifle, pickaxe, steel reinforced concrete, printed paper
1000 x 1500 x 700 mm
2016
Private Collection
Institutional is a brutalist, informal monument to the Marikana Massacre, taking as its nexus point two press releases the artist downloaded from lonmin.com. Each A4 press release from 2015 detail the accidental death of a worker at the company's Marikana facility. One details the death of a black, male employee and the other that of a white, male employee. An institutional, racial bias are plainly evident in these comparative texts. The inclusion of the R5 rifle in the sculpture (standard issue to South African Police Services) as well as the pickaxe, metaphorically represent the violent hierarchy evident in the current South African Vice President’s (Cyril Ramaphosa) deeply problematic relationship to the London-based company. The Marikana Massacre started as a wildcat strike at a mine owned by Lonmin plc (a British producer of platinum group metals) in the Marikana area, close to Rustenburg, South Africa in 2012. The event garnered international attention following a series of violent incidents between the South African Police Service, Lonmin security and the leadership of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on the one side and strikers themselves on the other, which resulted in the deaths of 44 people, 41 of whom were striking mineworkers killed by police between 14 - 16 August 2012. During the same incident, at least 78 additional workers were injured. The Marikana Massacre was the single most lethal use of force by South African security forces against civilians since 1960. The shootings have been compared to the Sharpeville massacre in 1960.
From left:
Mean magic | Electric guitar, concrete | 1600 x 660 x 300 mm | 2018 | Private collection
Taliesin | Concrete, steel, silkscreen ink, MDF, enamel paint | 1360 x 330 x 660 mm | 2018
Untitled (Niger Delta) | Concrete, M4A1 Rifle, vegetable ivory | 1100 x 460 x 510 mm | 2016 | Private collection
Solus Rex I
Urethane, steel, white concrete
280 x 230 x 200 mm
Solus Rex II
Found object, bronze, white concrete, cotton, steel
380 x 230 x 120 mm
Dulcie September
Concrete, steel, iPhone, steel safe, headphones, electrical unit
1130 x 560 x 500 mm
2018
The sculpture features the song September composed by Jean-Michel Jarre (from his album Revolutions, 1988) - playing on headphones connected to an iPhone in a small locked, steel safe.
Dulcie Evonne September (20 August 1935 – 29 March 1988) was a South African anti-apartheid political activist. Born in Athlone, Western Cape, South Africa, she was assassinated on the morning of 29 March 1988, outside the ANC's office in Paris, France.
Untitled (Vuwani)
Bone, concrete, salvaged timber (door fragment from Mawela Primary School, Vuwani, Limpopo)
3200 x 410 x 430 mm
2016
"In Vuwani – a rural town in Limpopo Province, South Africa - a community went about burning schools in an organised manner following a decision by the Municipal Demarcation Board to incorporate Vuwani into a new municipality. A total of 20 such schools have to date been burnt or significantly vandalised. The actions may be linked to the toxic politics of patronage and local looting of the public purse, and it would appear that Vuwani’s move to a new municipality may have a devastating impact on some ‘tenderpreneurs’. The struggle over demarcation has been shaped by old Bantustan borders and identities and has also become an ethnic conflict. As the ANC loses support in the cities, it is increasingly rooted in the former Bantustans and arguably in local ethnic identities.”
THE MERCURY Newspaper, Durban, South Africa (19 May 2016)
Maximum Force
Reclaimed timber from Nkaneng, Marikana, 100% pure platinum nail
1750 x 300 x 450 mm
2016
Private Collection
The Marikana Massacre started as a wildcat strike at a mine owned by Lonmin plc (a British producer of platinum group metals) in the Marikana area, close to Rustenburg, South Africa in 2012. The event garnered international attention following a series of violent incidents between the South African Police Service, Lonmin security and the leadership of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on the one side and strikers themselves on the other, which resulted in the deaths of 44 people, 41 of whom were striking mineworkers killed by police between 14 - 16 August 2012. During the same incident, at least 78 additional workers were injured. The Marikana Massacre was the single most lethal use of force by South African security forces against civilians since 1960. The shootings have been compared to the Sharpeville massacre in 1960.