David Mach
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2008-06-22T15:39:50Z
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'''David Mach''' (born [[20 March]] [[1956]]) is a [[Scotland|Scottish]] [[sculpture|sculptor]] and installation artist.
Mach's artistic style is based on flowing assemblages of mass-produced [[found art]] objects. Typically these include magazines,vicious teddy bears,newspapers, car tyres, match sticks and coat hangers. Many of his installations are temporary and constructed in public spaces.
[[Image:David Mach Adding Fuel to the Fire.jpg|thumb|right|200px|One of David Mach's magazine pieces, ''Adding Fuel to the Fire'', installation in [[Barcelona]].]]
One example of his early magazine pieces, ''Adding Fuel to the Fire'', was an [[installation art|installation]] assembled from an old truck and several cars surrounded and subsumed by about 100 tons of magazines, individually arranged to create the impression that the vehicles were being caught in an explosion of flames and billowing smoke.
An early influential sculpture was ''Polaris,'' exhibited outside the [[Royal Festival Hall]],[[South Bank Centre]], [[London]] in 1983. This consisted of some 6000 car tyres arranged as a lifesize replica of a [[Resolution class submarine|Polaris submarine]]. Mach intended it as a protest against the nuclear arms race meant to stir controversy. A member of the public who took exception to the piece tried to burn it down; unfortunately, he got caught in the flames himself and suffered fatal burns.
In the early 1980s Mach started to produce some smaller-scale works assembled out of unstruck [[match|match stick]]s. These mostly took the form of human or animalistic heads and masks, with the coloured tips of the match heads arranged to construct the patterned surface of the face. After accidentally setting fire to one of these heads, Mach now often ignites his match pieces as a form of [[performance art]].
Recently Mach has produced some permanent public works such as ''Out of Order'' in [[Kingston upon Thames]], the ''Brick Train'' (a depiction of an [[LNER Class A4]] steam engine made from 185000 bricks, which can be seen near a supermarket on the A66 just outside [[Darlington]]) and the ''Big Heids'' visible from the [[M8 motorway|M8]] between [[Glasgow]] and [[Edinburgh]].
A second strand to Mach's work are his [[collage]] pieces. Partly as a result of having access to thousands of reproduced images in the magazines left over from many of his installations, Mach began to experiment with producing collages. So far, this has culminated in ''National Portrait,'' a 3 m by 70 m collage for the [[Millennium Dome]] that featured many images of British people at work and at play.
Mach studied at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art (now a school of [[University of Dundee]]), [[Dundee]], [[Scotland]] from 1974, graduating in 1979, then at the [[Royal College of Art]], [[London]] between 1979 – 82. Following several shows and public installations, Mach was nominated for the [[Turner Prize]] in 1988. In 2000 he joined the [[Royal Academy of Arts]] as Professor of Sculpture.
==External links==
* David Mach's [http://www.davidmach.com/ official web site]
* [http://www.sculpture.org.uk/artists/DavidMach Mach] at sculpture.org.uk
** [http://www.sculpture.org.uk/portfolio/DavidMach Portfolio]
* David Mach's representing gallery [http://www.denoirmont.com/artiste.php?id=12/ Jerome de Noirmont]
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[[Category:1956 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Scottish sculptors]]
[[Category:Installation artists]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Dundee]]
[[Category:Alumni of the Royal College of Art]]
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