Marcus Coates (1968 – )
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Iron Prominent, Notodonta dromedarius (Moth) Self Portrait, shaving foam 2013 Marcus Coates (1968 – ) P8449 © (c) Marcus Coates. Photography by Nick David
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Comma Butterfly, Polygonia c-album (larva) Self portrait, sugar 2013 Marcus Coates (1968 – ) P8453 © (c) Marcus Coates 2014. Photography by Nick David
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Leopard Slug (Great Slug), Limax maximus, Self portrait, cotton wool Marcus Coates (1968 – ) P8455 © (c) Marcus Coates 2014. Photography by Nick David
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Convolvulus Hawk Moth, Agrius convolvuli (larva) Self Portrait, shaving foam 2013 Marcus Coates (1968 – ) P8451 © (c) Marcus Coates. Photography by Nick David
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Common Slug, Arion hortensis, Self portrait, cotton wool Marcus Coates (1968 – ) P8454 © (c) Marcus Coates. Photography by Nick David
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HUMAN REPORT 2008 Marcus Coates (1968 – ) P8245 © (c) Marcus Coates. Produced in association with the CALOUSTE FOUNDATION and the GALAPAGOS CONSERVATION TRUST
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Fox Moth, Macrothylacia rubi (adult) Self Portrait, shaving foam 2013 Marcus Coates (1968 – ) P8450 © (c) Marcus Coates. Photography by Nick David
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Mayfly, Ephemeroptera (Subimago stage) Self Portait, flour and water 2013 Marcus Coates (1968 – ) P8452 © (c) Marcus Coates 2014. Photography by Nick David
Marcus Coates was born in London in 1968. He studied at the Kent Institute of Art and Design and the Royal Academy of Art, London.
He was awarded the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Artist Award in 2008 and the first Daiwa Foundation Art Prize in 2009. Coates has exhibited widely in the UK and overseas; solo exhibitions include Proxy, Kate Macgarry, London (2012); Dawn Chorus, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales (2012); The Trip, The Serpentine Gallery, Artist Studio, Londo (2011) and Psychopomp, Milton Keynes Gallery (2010). He was also included in the 2009 Tate Triennale exhibition Altermodern, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud.
Working in various media, including photography, sculpture and sound, Coates is best known for his performative films, which explore encounters between the human and animal worlds, a key theme throughout his work. He appropriates the language and behaviour of wild mammals, insects and birds as a means of deciphering our emotional and social conventions. He gained notoriety for his video installation Dawn Chorus (2007), in which singers are shown in their natural habitats of offices and living rooms, mimicking intricate birdsong.
Coates regularly appears in his films, often as a shamanic figure interacting with members of the public. Dressed in casual clothes and a selection of taxidermal headdresses, he channels animal spirits, using these encounters to offer insight into the problems of the human world. This interest in ‘becoming animal’ continues in a series of photographic self-portraits from 2013 in which the artist transforms himself into insects and molluscs by encasing his body in shaving foam, cotton wool, sugar and flour paste. Another transformation takes place in the film Human Report (2008), where Coates inverts the perspective of the nature documentary format. Disguised in a rudimentary cardboard costume resembling a blue-footed booby bird, native to the Galapagos Islands, the artist undertakes an observation of human life. The result is a funny, yet poignant critique of our desire to demystify nature.
Glossary
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Design
The arrangement of elements or details in an artefact or a work of art.
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Film
A transparent, flexible plastic material, usually of cellulose acetate or polyester, on which light-sensitive emulsion is coated, or on which an image can be formed by various transfer processes.
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Installation
An artwork comprised of many and various elements of miscellaneous materials (see mixed media), light and sound, which is conceived for and occupies an entire space, gallery or site. The viewer can often enter or walk around the installation. Installations may only exist as long as they are installed, but can be re-created in different sites. Installation art emerged in the 1960s out of Environmental Art (works of art which are three-dimensional environments), but it was not until the 1970s that the term came into common use and not until the late 1980s that artists started to specialise in this kind of work, creating a genre of ‘Installation Art’. The term can also be applied to the arrangement of selected art works in an exhibition.
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Video
Images recorded on videotape or on optical disc to be viewed on television screens, or projected onto screens. The medium through which these images are recorded and displayed.