:Alastair MacKinven
{{Short description|British artist (1971–2025)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Alastair MacKinven
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| birth_date = {{birth date text|1971}}
| birth_place = Clatterbridge, England
| death_date = 8 January 2025 (aged 53)
| death_place = London, United Kingdom
| nationality = British
| years_active = 1997–2025
| field = Painting], performance art
| training = BFA Alberta College of Art, Calgary
MFA Goldsmiths College, London
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Alastair MacKinven (1971 – 8 January 2025)[https://en.artmediaagency.com/95c39d3db44b5736d06dc80772f7c383 Death of artist Alastair MacKinven] was a British visual artist based in London working on figurative painting and portraiture, film, and performance.{{Cite web |title=Alastair MacKinven |url=https://archive.ica.art/nought-sixty-artists-index/alastair-mackinven/index.html |access-date=3 May 2024 |website=archive.ica.art |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Hunt |first=Andrew |date=1 May 2019 |title=Alastair Mackinven and Behrang Karimi |url=https://www.artforum.com/events/alastair-mackinven-and-behrang-karimi-244843/ |access-date=3 May 2024 |website=Artforum |language=en-US}} He was a lecturer in painting at the University College of London's Slade School of Art and professor of the Figurative Painting Class in the Viennese Academy of Fine Art until his death in 2025.{{Cite web |title=Slade School of Fine Art - Mackinven |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/people/academic/amack36/ |access-date=3 May 2024 |website=Slade School of Fine Art |language=en}} He held a BFA from Alberta College of Art, Calgary, in Canada (1994); and an MFA from Goldsmiths College, London (1996).{{Cite web |title=Maureen Paley – Alastair Mackinven |url=https://www.maureenpaley.com/artists/alastair-mackinven/biography |access-date=3 May 2024 |website=www.maureenpaley.com |language=en}}
Life and career
Alastair MacKinven's paintings touch on figuration, mythology, the physical and natural worlds depicting ethereal color combinations to present human and non human bodies and objects.{{Cite web |last=Schwabsky |first=Barry |date=1 May 2021 |title=Alastair Mackinven |url=https://www.artforum.com/events/alastair-mackinven-248324/ |access-date=3 May 2024 |website=Artforum |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |last=Block |first=Louis |date=9 March 2021 |title=Alastair MacKinven: Dlnrg [oeeey] |url=https://brooklynrail.org/2021/03/artseen/Alastair-MacKinven-Dlnrg-oeeey |access-date=3 May 2024 |website=The Brooklyn Rail |language=en-US}}
His first performance film work, All the Things You Could Be by Now If Robert Smithson's Wife Was Your Mother, which depicted the artist in nude, was exhibited in London in 2007.{{Cite web |date=1 November 2009 |title=Abstract Capitalist Realism |url=https://mapmagazine.co.uk/abstract-capitalist-realism |access-date=3 May 2024 |website=MAP Magazine |language=en-GB}}{{Cite journal |date=2007 |title=Back Matter |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20711649 |journal=Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry |issue=15 |issn=1465-4253}}
In 2008, his solo show Alastair MacKinven at ICA London paid homage to Dutch designer and illustrator M. C. Escher.{{Cite web |title=Alastair MacKinven |url=https://archive.ica.art/whats-on/alastair-mackinven/index.html |access-date=3 May 2024 |website=archive.ica.art |language=en}} His performance Cut Off My Hand to Spite My Cock, in which he glued his own hand to the gallery floor, was too shown in 2008 at Camden Art Centre, London.
In 2009 MacKinven started working on the Abstract Capitalist Realism painting series and body of work about dualisms such as life and death, happiness and sadness, among others.{{Cite journal |date=2009 |title=Back Matter |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20711740 |journal=Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry |issue=20 |issn=1465-4253}}
In the summer of 2020, his work was featured in the cover and content of Frontrunner, an arts journal edited by art critic Shana Beth Mason.{{Cite web |last=Mason |first=Shana Beth |date=8 September 2020 |title=FRONTRUNNER Meets Alastair Mackinven |url=https://frontrunnermag.com/posts/frontrunner-meets-alastair-mackinven/ |access-date=3 May 2024 |website=FRONTRUNNER |language=en-US}}
MacKinven's work was on view in Room by Room: Concepts, Themes, and Artists in the Rachofsky Collection, presented in 2023 at Warehouse Dallas.{{Cite web |title=The Warehouse Dallas {{!}} Alastair Mackinven |url=https://thewarehousedallas.org/artists/alastair-mackinven/ |access-date=3 May 2024 |website=The Warehouse Dallas |language=en-US}} His work is included in the collection of Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida.
On 8 January 2025, it was announced that MacKinven had died following a long illness. He was 53.{{cite news |title=Alastair Mackinven Has Died, Aged 53 |url=https://thequietus.com/news/alastair-mackinven-has-died-aged-53/ |access-date=11 January 2025 |publisher=The Quietus |date=10 January 2025}}{{Cite web |title=It is with huge respect and sadness that we announce the passing, after a long illness, of Alastair Mackinven artist, painter, musician, writer, teacher and wonderful person who will be greatly missed by all who knew and appreciated him and his work. |url=https://www.instagram.com/p/DEkSk_fK0TR/?img_index=1 |website=Maureen Paley on Instagram |access-date=8 January 2025}}
References
External links
- {{discogs artist|Alastair MacKinven}}
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Category:21st-century British artists
Category:21st-century British painters
Category:Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London