Artist stories - Lost Marbles

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David Mach's studio
David Mach working in his studio

"Lost Marbles" - a pun, referring both to the Elgin Marbles and losing one's mental faculties - is going to be a piece about the British Museum and, more broadly, about ancient treasures, art and artefacts, who they are created for, and how they are treated. David plans to make a collage showing swarms of people running off with precious objects from the British Museum - even pieces of the museum itself.

weblink See how the collage developed
weblink Video Interview with students from Waddesdon School
weblink The finished work

Methodology
David has built up a huge resource of images collected from magazines, history/archaeology books bought from charity shops, leaflets and so on. All these images have been filed meticulously in boxes with titles such as 'trees', 'sky', 'lorries', 'action', etc.

click to see larger version
Resources
click to see larger version
Resources
click to see larger version
The British Museum

Shunning computer-based technology (such as Photoshop) "because it's too slow", David Mach begins working on a large photographic print of the British Museum. For 'Lost Marbles' he has been collecting pictures of people grabbing stuff which will be reworked into the collage.

The collage will also be about civilization, and what makes us civilized. History is full of countries, when at war, robbing artefacts. The Iraq war is no exception: see a BBC news article at www.bbc.co.uk

David Mach Links

weblink davidmach.com
weblink sculpture.org.uk - About his sculpture - CASS sculpture foundation
weblink tate.org - Turner Prize Shortlist
weblinkMore information on David Mach

Further reading

weblink The Elgin Marbles - join the controversial debate
weblink Photomontage



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