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In
his latest performance piece, the inimitable Mark McGowan kicked a crackhead
through London. Starting at the House Gallery in Camberwell, Mark booted
the crackhead to Peckham and on towards New Cross, Brockley, Forest
Hill, and East Dulwich, before finally arriving back in Camberwell at
the Maudsley Hospital Detox. Here, having been kicked for seven miles
over ten days, the haggard object of Mark's satirical sadism was given
help.
Despite
what this sounds like, Mark is thoroughly likeable in person. He's also
a notorious pariah of the official art world, with quite a history as
a protestor. He took on class prejudice towards cleaners - while he
was, naturally, working as a cleaner - by rolling through London in
his marigolds; he remonstrated over the insidious expansion of the bus-lane
by dragging a bus for thirty metres with his toe; he pushed a monkey
nut with his nose to Downing Street, as a metaphor for the financial
predicament of students; and he single-handedly confronted obesity by
walking around London with a turkey on his head, shouting at fat people
to stop eating bad food.
For 'On the Road to a Miracle', Mark held interviews to find a crackhead
willing to volunteer for his scornful parody of the treatment of addicts.
Mark also mused over what position this personification of rock-bottom
should take while being impelled by the artist's Doc Martens. He finally
settled on the foetal position, thus allowing the crackhead to appear
suitably penitent and deserving of help. Though ostensibly banal, 'On
the Road to a Miracle' manages to make a clear and unpretentious point.
By depicting an objectified drug-fiend being physically beaten into
submission, Mark satirises the actions of a society in which desperate
individuals - whether drug addicts, beggars, or the homeless - are coerced
and expected to suffer before being given help. Mark sets out to arouse
empathy for the subject among a previously uncaring public, and succeeds
in vividly portraying an addict as someone not only needing but also
deserving our help.
Perhaps predictably, Mark's work is often met with contempt. After all,
he's a self-confessed attention-seeker who consistently uses the most
ridiculous means to make a point. Nevertheless, he does, at least, have
a point to make. Mark has frequently remarked that he would like to
see more artists working in the street than in the gallery, if only
to make art relevant. Rather than being yet another example of the 'But
is it Art?' phenomenon, therefore, Mark's conceptual work has more in
common with traditional street art, bringing art to the public in order
to address local issues. For those tired of the truly banal, sterile
furnishings of the out-dated gallery space - and for those unconvinced
by the equally trite 'Live Art' - Mark's work offers hope. His latest
effort, 'On the Road to a Miracle', is no exception, succeeding as an
uncomplicated allegory for tough love and the shameful treatment of
the shameless.
'On the
Road to a Miracle' started on 21 March at the House Gallery, 70 Camberwell
Church Street, London, ending on 30 March.
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