Art Monthly, review by Paul Usherwood, May 2011
This is tomorrow magazine, review by Rebecca Morrill and Guy Tindale, May 2011
The cult of St Cuthbert inspires artist Ant Macari, The Journal, April 2011 -Why would a man dressed as a monk cart a crate across Northumberland? David Whetstone meets Ant Macari, an artist who spurns the easy options.
Ant Macari has just completed a six-month residency at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art in Sunderland, enjoying studio space, time to explore ideas and a nice view of Wilkinson’s on the other side of Fawcett Street…
A-n Magazine, Preview, March 2011 - A six-month residency by Ant Macari displays its results in ‘Get out and troop the shape of a void!’ (Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, 25 March – 18 June), with his multi-disciplinary practice making numerous cultural references through symbols and codes. Macari’s drawings explore the history of image making, expanding the medium and necessitating activation by the viewer.
Guardian Guide, Preview, March 2011 -A carved hole cut into a specially constructed partition wall appears to trace the outline of the elevated figure of God in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling. Step through, and you get to Ant Macari’s mysteriously titled exhibition – Get out and troop the shape of the void. With all his cross-references between symbols, cosmic diagrams and mathematical quandaries, it can be hard to tell whether Macari is being deeply earnest or, well, having us on. Here’s a “welcoming committee” using casts of the artist’s hands, each holding a “harmonograph” drawing of the universe. In the next room there’s a Zen garden where the rocks have been replaced by monitors playing videos of the artist engaged in rituals such as brushing his teeth. After all, all that heady spirituality would be a bit much without a healthy grounding in banal absurdities. NGCA, Thu to 18 Jun. RC
A-n, Reviews 2010 – Brick By Brick, X-site, Newcastle Upon Tyne. Occupying the space of a single wall, Brick by Brick intervenes with the existing architecture of Foundry Lane Studios to create a project which conflates site specific objectives with a unique collaborative concept…
A-n, Reviews 2009 – Morphic Resonance, PSL, Leeds. What is a project space? Why is it that some organisations prefer the term over the more traditional gallery or institutional monikers? To my mind a project space can be characterised by a commitment to exhibitions and events that expand upon specific political, social or regional issues. Their interest is in experimentation, and a developing understanding, rather than on pre-destined outcomes…
Guardian Guide, Preview, 2007 -It’s good to see the Baltic giving some exposure to Newcastle-based artists in authorizing Ant Macari to infiltrate the very walls themselves with his site specific drawings. Macari plays with our western tendency to read image sequences in the same left to right order as we read text. It’s a technique common in medieval devotional art, brought up-to date in our graffiti-scrawled urban environments of subliminal symbolism. A parallel tactic subversion can be seen in the retrospective of collages by Linder (work pictured). Made famous for her cover design for the Buzzcocks’ debut single Orgasm Addict, Linder continues to undermine domestic conventions with image concoctions combining soft porn and doing the dishes.
Aesthetica Magazine, 2007 – Ant Macari has an incredibly benevolent philosophy towards his work. Neither possessive nor exalted in his artistic approach, Macari places significant emphasis on the response of his audience. The nature of Macari’s work lends itself to interpretation, with the audience and not the artist taking centre stage…
