Marcus Coates
Award-winning visual artist and shaman Marcus Coates will be landing on the Caught By The River stage as part of Ceri Levy’s unique Bird Effects get-together. Renowned for his unique understanding of British wildlife, Marcus performs shamanic rituals to communicate with animals within the spirit-world, in a bid to help seek resolution to social issues such as illegal cycle parking and prostitution. This also involves dressing up as a stag on occasions.
Marcus was the Calouste Gulbenkian Artist in Residence in the Galapagos Islands in 2008, but now lives and works in London. He has performed at venues across the world, from Tokyo to Zurich via a performance for The Mayor of Holon in Israel. He was the winner of the Paul Hamlyn Visual Arts Award in 2008 and the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize in 2009 for his film, installation and performance focusing on the relationship between humans and other species. It was exhibited in the Altermodern Tate Triennial at Tate Britain.
Whether training amateur singers to mimic the dawn chorus, or burying himself in a pit covered with turf to perform an animal call karaoke of indigenous mammals in Britain, Marcus’s art always promises to be original, insightful and tinged with eccentricity. It is with great anticipation that we await his performance at Port Eliot on Saturday afternoon.
“Marcus Coates is one of Britain’s most original artists…The kind of British eccentric you thought they didn’t make anymore.”
The Telegraph
Links:
- The Guardian on Marcus Coates’ Dawn Chorus
- Frieze magazine on Marcus Coates
- The Telegraph reviews Marcus Coates’ Psychopomp exhibition at Milton Keynes
Video:
A Tate Modern video on Marcus Coates:
