Mark Garry

The third presentation was with Irish artist Mark Garry, and was titled ‘Managing contemporary art projects in a number of contexts, as both a curator and artist’.

Firstly he showed a group show he had participated in, in the Hugh Lane gallery called ‘Frequency’. He explained that at this time he was hugely interested in the work created in theminimalist movement and also the idea of biomimicry. A particular piece Garry mentioned was that of his ‘Origami Swan’. He raised the point that on first glance the swan appears to be made and should be paper, however on further inspection the viewer realizes that it is in fact made from stainless steel. It is here that the biomimicry can be seen in reverse and as he explained himself,’ It questions how the use of different materials have been used for the wrong reasons and because of it the world is now fundamentally fucked up’.

The next piece shown was ‘Logic and its associates’, consists of two music boxes placed on two wooden cutouts which represent a human head and the heart. When the music boxes are wound by the viewer they play a pattern of rhythms taken from the average male brain (which represents the human nervous system) and the average male heart (which represents the human heart beat). In a sense the artist is making an attempt at being romantic by pairing the head and heart and using music which can be played in harmony to almost represent love. He then went on to explain the elements involved in making the pieces for this exhibition which included, designing and manufacturing three new sculptural works, consultation, instrument making internship and negotiation of space.

Next he moved on to Public art commissions and that when new roads or public construction are happening, a small percentage of its budget is put towards making artwork for that space. He started by talking about his piece, ‘Sending letters to the sea’. This public work was based in the Fingal area and at the time the artist was interested in Ireland’s Christian status. He then began to look at the connections between music and religion and how it influenced and shaped the various forms of music we hear today. The idea behind the title for the piece was that by sending letters to the sea, it mirrored the way in which faith works. The letters that are sent might be returned but then again might not, just like the faith that can be seen in religions.

The last piece I want to mention is another public artwork titled ‘Wind Harps’.The artist said that when he first viewed the area he thought it was perfect as it was so in the work in he made he didn’t want to take from it. He eventually created wind harps which are activated by nature and within time the harps will once again be concealed by reeds so they will fit back into the surrounding nature.

The presentation was very interesting as it showed public artworks from an artist’s perspective and let arise the questions and answers of how to work in group shows.