garrie maguire
art practice // inquires into masculinity
NEWS
The male//chair project is being exhibited at the Victorian Pride Centre as part of their visual arts programme from 8 March to 28 April 2024. That is right now! Opening is Thursday 14 March 2024. We are very excited in how it looks. There is an annex to the show at XYZ Photo Gallery for images that show men anatomically correct!
ARTIST STATEMENT
I have pursued the interrogation of the constructions of masculinity and questioning the economy of desire as it relates to males, with a whole of world (culture) approach, with particular reference to Asia. My work rejects a WENA plus one bias (Western Europe/North America plus the current economic powerhouse, which at the moment is China) within the hegemonic curatorialship of photo-media, for a primacy of a North/South Axis, informed by Southern theory and my lived experience of very mixed peer group on the Eastern Seaboard of Australia and being Othered in China and the Philippines.
I am aware of the structures of post-colonial and feminist thought and how my whiteness is seen to negate me from being position of other. This structure is eroded by, when one tries to maintain the dominance of whiteness, while living in China, a culture that subscribes to their own centrality in world order and thought. It is further eroded by both my social position growing up (in an 99% white society in regional NSW in a family with low social capital), my Irish ancestry and that my forebears came to Australia as convicts for various property crimes, with one being suspected of being part of the Irish uprising of 1798 to overthow colonial rule and being gay, when sex was still illegal into my 20's and could result in gaol or death.
A BIO IN 100 WORDS OR LESS
Garrie Maguire born into a working class family, and never really fitted into Grafton, a small insignificant Australian City. In 1982 he studied modern history which had a major component studying China, from Qing through the Republic to the Communist period and the changes that flowed. Late 1995 he finally set foot in China. Guangzhou, Guilin, Yangzhou, Shanghai and Hangzhou.
Garrie is a genXer who achieved childhood as the son of boilermaker, which along with being the smallest male and not sporty he found he had little social capital. On the Sunshine Coast as an adolescent he rebelled by going to Church.
My work has tended to put WENA in a supporting, even marginalised position inverting that of the hegemony, where it is assumed central, normal and unmarked.
He is trained in theology, photography, graphic design and sociology. All this has given him an unusual perspective on life. Each of his careers has been decimated by outside forces, like recession, technological changes, or government policy adjustment.
He uses photography to understand the world and his place in it. He has exhibited and had work published broadly. Photography helps him explore questions not answered. Sometimes photography cannot tell the whole story.
Please Note, the work on this website on this website confirms that men do have a penis. This site looks best on large screens.
