The first work one sees upon entering the gallery, Dutch Disease, is a totem of sorts. The skull, crow and leaves that have been assembled on what was presumably a tripod before its appropriation, are washed in black, an explicit reference to the effect of oil extraction in Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria. Drawing on W. Max Cordon and J. Peter’s 1982 economic theory, Dutch Disease points to the exploitative processes and devastation that follows on from oil extraction, leading ultimately to general societal decay.
An editioned bronze pig head, with glass eyes and insect-infested face, entitled Mercantile Capitalism, draws one further into the show’s narrative. This piece is an overtly satirical gesture which aims criticism at the African political elites who occupy positions of power within their post-independence countries, yet are plainly corrupt in their dealings at the level of national economy .
The inclusion of two large drawings, made with the help of digital technology, is a welcome expansion of MacGarry’s formal vocabulary, which in his previous solo exhibitions has been dominated by sculpture. The first drawing is entitled Malabo, Equtorial Guinne 2023. Here he pictures a proposed vision of the cityscape of Equatorial Guinea’s capital city, dominated by phallic-shaped skyscrapers. One is unnerved by the fact that this blue linear rendering of this futuristic environment, which shares an architectural vernacular more akin to cities such as Shanghai, could be located on the African continent in the near future. Beijing Summit on China-Africa Cooperation: Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe meets China’s President Hu Jintao, 6 November 2006 provides an interesting counterpart to the aforementioned drawing, in that it establishes the tale of Chinese intervention in Africa. Executed in the same style and scale, the drawing’s choice of red lines heightens the alarm for the consequences of the meeting pictured. The evocative African natural landscape in the background appears at the mercy of the delegates in the foreground.
Nearby, an exhibition case displays various objects made from ivory. The arrangement of these items, which include a bullet, a knife, a pair of dice, a knuckleduster and syringe, sit uneasily between a bangle, a cork, a Mercedes Benz hood ornament, comb, golf tee, dildo and Wayfarer sunglasses. This unlikely display of seemingly incongruous objects makes up The Ossuary. For MacGarry, it points to systems which have been 'strategically retained by political elites post-independence to meet the needs of their own convoluted, expensive and Baroque political processes, coupled with substantial personal consumption'.
Outside the Agostinho Mausoleum, Luanda, Angola, 15 July 2009, a documentary-style photograph, shows a Chinese workman wearing a hardhat and standing next to a Luandan civilian. They both stare into the camera which, it appears, is focused as much on them as the phallic Mausoleum, of the type featured in the digital drawing Malabo, Equatorial Guinea 2023, in the background. Although the two figures appear to co-exist, they are divided by this transformation of the landscape, which the Chinese workman is presumably responsible for erecting. Their juxtaposition is underscored by an uneasy tension that is barely masked by the smiles on their faces.
MacGarry provided viewers with a conceptual bridge to his new body of work by including familiar objects, adaptations and extensions of works from his previous exhibitions 'True/Story' and 'When enough people start saying the same thing'. Zhou Enlai and the Scramble for Africa recalls his exploration of constructed, filmic photographs. Satrap II-Luanda is another familiar sight. An AK-47, one of MacGarry’s signature modified objects, makes a return, this time covered in crystal and pigmented urethane. Finally, a table of artifacts and fetish objects is positioned centrally within the exhibition space. Upon closer inspection, Macgarry has established a distinction between his previous tables and the one on show here. The table surface is black and the objects on display are fixed to it with pigmented urethane, an allusion to the show’s concern with oil, and the ‘sticky situations’ that result from the exploitative processes synonymous with attaining this natural resource.
One would be forgiven for having assumed the show had been viewed in its entirety before noticing a door leading into a final, dimly lit room. The black walls create an enclosing, somber atmosphere, forcing one to focus on the bulletproof glass supporting a white chocolate cast of a pig’s hind leg. Macgarry’s African National Congress hits uncomfortably close to home. This work, which arguably serves as the show’s conclusion, leaves us with a provocative statement of the ruling elite within post-Apartheid South Africa and its championing of Black Economic Empowerment.
A valuable addition to the exhibition was a series of text panels scattered strategically throughout the exhibition space. Thankfully, the texts were not explanatory or written by the artist. They were culled from a variety of sources and provided valuable counterpoints to the work on display. It would seem that MacGarry encourages one to explore the possibility of finding meaning neither in the objects or texts alone, but in the dynamic spaces between them.
'This is the world in which we grow and we will learn to hate you' makes a clear argument for the complexity that characterizes the extraction of oil and other natural resources within the African continent. MacGarry’s strategy of parodying the economic and socio-political parts played by political elites in our continent’s unfolding history points to the fact that the colonialist economic and social structures are not yet a thing of the past. Although his visual and textual juxtapositions allow for subtle interpretation, the forcefully seductive nature of his aesthetics and their self-consciously clever creation might undermine his persuasively critical stance. However, McGarry did once again deliver an impressive showroom, one with just the right pitch, that will certainly maintain the aura that this year’s Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year 2010 deserves.
