Mark McGowan

One thing I have to admit is, Mark McGowans lecture was by far the most interesting Transmission I've been to over the last two years. I'd heard of his work before in the news, but I hadn't remembered the name, just the controversial art itself. It was only the second time I'd heard of the artist before the lecture.

As you can see from the clips above, Mark McGowan's practice uses the media and controversy to make a statement, whether about British summer towns, the Royal family, war or vandalism. His work wouldn't exist without a reaction so he effectively manipulates the press to get attention and to get that reaction that he needs. Some of his performance pieces include; eating swan meat, running a tap constantly for two weeks, pulling a bus with his big toe, key scratching on cars and posing as a dead soldier on the street. He describes his work as "heartless art"and he knows if it's a good piece of art if it gets on the TV, just because he knows it's provoked a reaction.

One thing that surprised me was when McGowan said the the majority of the artists he knows hate his work, and that they feel he goes too far with some of his performances, such as the reconstruction of the 7/7 bombings in London. It was quite impressive that he didn't let negative critiques affect him or his practice but carried on being controversial.

McGowan uses the internet for his own gain, as well as the media, by using sites such as Facebook and Youtube to interact with the public as well as producing a huge amount of work that is always provocative. I was very surprised at how many performances he'd done in such a short time.

In something of a twist, McGowan also paints, although these are relatively unseen due to his performance work dominating his practice. The paintings were shown to us with a slight hesitation (whether for effect or genuine I'm not sure) and because of that, there was a ripple of laughter as his pieces were very naively "fun", there bright poster colours hit you to hide the quite disturbing content. For example, one showed a man on fire, stood in a street. The painting wasn't very technical, it looked like an child's attempt to draw a dream. But I quite liked the whimsical style, it was "cute" and endearing, quite a contrast to his angry performance style.

Sara Newman - The Independent (Interview)

A common misperception of me is ...

That I'm an idiot. Within the art world they definitely think I'm an idiot. I'm not sure if it's a misconception. I am interested in the idea of shame. A teacher told me at school, "you're an idiot. You're stupid". I wasn't very good at exams. Part of my art is to be portrayed as an idiot and to be seen as a fool. One of the things about shame is that when you do it in public it has a certain amount of power attached to it and you can use that power.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/the-5minute-interview-mark-mcgowan-artist-449867.html

 The above interview shows McGowan's "character" that he projects into the media. He is clearly not an idiot, but he plays up to the role of the fool, using humour and over-the-top reactions and statements to again gage a reaction and give a lasting impression with the public, which, despite many artists criticising his methods, works.

After the Transmission lecture, I added Mark McGowan on Facebook as he had mentioned he used his profile to upload video pieces. On his profile there was also a link to his new blog website so I was able to look at his video diary blogs from his job as a taxi driver, where he rants about anything and everything that annoys him. I quite liked the raw quality that a video diary captures; it is a piece that is completely in the moment it's made. As McGowan says "The power of performance lies in it not really being there".