Hello and welcome to the 46th 3 Art Questions With Jackson interview! This time I interviewed Joshua McGarvey, an artist I've admired for a long time who is receiving a lot of well deserved attention. Joshua does very unique things with installation art, sculpture, and video art and has a current show at the Minneapolis Institute of Art that everyone should go see. As I expected, his answers were very interesting and informative. I think you will agree! Thank you for reading! (Instagram: @joshuadmcgarvey, website: joshuamcgarvey.com, all images courtesy of the artist)
Jackson: What inspired you to be an artist, and a video artist in particular? How old were you when you settled on the idea?
Joshua: My mom was always very creative. She drew and would occupy me and my brother often with pencil and paper. My interest in being an artist grew from there. I was always drawing. In school, I was often called by teachers for "doodling" too much. Then in college, I discovered printmaking (specifically intaglio, woodcut, bookmaking). Then in grad school, I discovered installation. Installation led to building sets and wanting to activate them with performance. Performance led to documentation. Documentation led to video. But also the works of artists like Kenneth Anger, Jack Smith, Peter Kubelka, Paul McCarthy, Bruce Nauman, David Hammons, Mike Kelley, Hito Steyerl, and Alex Da Corte led me towards video. I am also inspired by internet video culture and some reality TV. Although some of my more recent large scale pieces have been focused on video, I consider myself a multidisciplinary artist working with but not limited to performance, sound, interactive elements, and materials such as textiles, scuplture, photography and video. My current exhibition "POSTURING" at Minneapolis Institute of Art's MAEP Gallery includes some large sculptural works that play off the videos in a way that expands the concepts of the installation from hyper personal to institutional critique.
Jackson: When did you begin using masks in your art and why? Does it relate to the humor and irony you use or do you see it as separate?
Joshua: I printed the masks of my own face in 2017 as I was developing my work for the Jerome Fellowship for Emerging Artists exhibition at MCAD (The Program, 2018). The mask was born of the question, "how do I remove myself from my video performances of hyper personal ideas." I began trying to cast a new me, and my work utilizing the mask grew, abstracted, and evolved from there. In my video "An Interview with the Artist Joshua McGarvey" the mask represents a concept I call "emotional anonymity", which explores digital identity, privacy, futility, and presentations of self by using the mask to hide my facial expressions during an interview. In terms of humor/irony, I try to use that as a disarming quality in my work, like a mechanism to casually engage my audience while exploring abstract concepts.
Jackson: If you could meet any artist living or dead, who would it be and why?
Joshua: I would like to hang out with Mark Manders. I love his work. I really admire his ability to intertwine language and sculptural forms. His piece "Shadow Study (2)" is so beautiful, haunting, simple, and poetic. The way his text allows you to enter the sculpture is very satisfying to me.
http://www.markmanders.org/works-a/shadow-study-2/2/
