Michael is a renown installation artist, sculptor, and photographer. He has been featured in PhotoNY, PhotoLA, and PhotoSF. In 2005, a collection of his portraiture was published under the title “Portraits of the Belly of the Whale”. He has been exhibited in solo and group shows around the world, and in 2009 his work was the target of an art heist in Connecticut.
Recently Garlington has been sought out for his installations. In 2010, Michael Garlington was sponsored to create the piece “PhotoHouse” by the National Endowment of the Arts and the Andy Warhol Visual Arts Foundation at SF Camerawork. Black Rock Arts Foundation chose and sponsored his work as part of their Honorarium Collection at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada two years in a row. In 2012 he created EGO, an installation piece, intricately blanketed with assemblage of thousands of hand-poured relics. In 2013, Garlington designed and built PhotoChapel, the second installation for BRAF, a Gothic-style chapel, covered inside and out with his black and white portraiture and an interior replete with a gilded interior, an altar, a confessional and catacombs.
In this hour-long presentation, Michael will share with us his world of “Constructed Realities”, and talk about his innovative approach to photography and sculpture, as well as self-promotion.
Michael tours the country in his PhotoCar, shooting portraits of ordinary Americans leading ordinary lives, yet there is something awry. Inside the work is a deeply felt affection for humanity in all its permutations and expressions, in all its horror and triviality. The PhotoCar has also been a key, and unconventional, form of self-promotion to the general community as well as the ever so sought after Art World. Michael will talk about his experiences with the PhotoCar and how it has shaped his career and work.
Michael will also take us behind the scenes of some of his most popular installations, includingPhotoChapel, and various “Constructed Realities” seen in his photographs. He’ll share artistic insights and practical details of constructing” fairy-tale like scenes encompassing the spectrum of human experience, from the mundane to the poignant to the absurd”.
