Charles McGill: In the Rough
29 May - 14 November 2021
Charles McGill (New York, 1964-2017) trained as a figurative painter and taught art and golf professionally. These disparate worlds were united, galvanized by a moment of inspiration, after someone commented on the oddity of the artist donning a golf bag at a gallery opening.
The game of golf, with its history of privilege and exclusion, is the artist’s channel for conversation surrounding racial prejudice – literally through his physical deconstruction and assemblage of golf bag parts and figuratively through the symbolic dismantling of the status symbol associated with this insular sport and leisure activity.
The unifying element is the artist’s nuanced treatment of material–a skill he honed as a painter. For McGill, the aesthetic equipoise of layering contrasting and textured materials was critical to the sculpture’s essence. McGill spoke eloquently about the “tug-of-war” between himself and the golf bags’ parts. Torn, stretched, and shredded, McGill laboriously wrestled with the bags’ rigidity and resistance to his intentions. The bare, exposed expressions of material denote a sense of integrity–a characteristic that the game of golf prides itself for, but one that we are prompted to reconsider through the artist’s examination of the sport and the symbols that perpetuate its intolerance.
This discourse intersects with local history. Leonard Reid, a prominent Black Sarasotan, co-designed our first golf course with John Gillespie, a Scottish immigrant and Sarasota’s first Mayor. And in 1959, four courageous Black Sarasotans—Eddie Lewis, Calbert Davis, Ed Rainey, Sr., and Robert Thomas—who were dedicated golfers weary of traveling to Tampa to play, arrived at Bobby Jones and spent the afternoon enjoying a round of golf, thus integrating our City’s municipal course.
We invite you to contemplate McGill’s extraordinary aesthetic achievement, wrought through his struggle in shaping material unyielding to change, and to celebrate the extraordinary achievements of all who work, persevering despite opposition, to make our world a more just and beautiful place.
This exhibition is made possible, in part, with generous support from:
Ernie Kretzmer
Gerald and Sondra Biller
2016
Reconfigured golf bag parts on panel
72 x 72 x 6 in.
Courtesy of the Estate of Charles McGill
2016
Reconfigured golf bag parts on panel
24 x 72 x 3.5 in.
Courtesy of the Estate of Charles McGill
(“Playing Through” series)
2007
Nylon banner
74 x 74 in.
Courtesy of the Estate of Charles McGill
2007
Golf bag collage
40 x 17 x 21 in.
Collection of Robert Rubin, New York
(“Playing Through” series)
2001
Color photograph
39.5 x 31.5 in.
Courtesy of the Estate of Charles McGill
2016
Reconfigured golf bag parts on panel
24 x 72 x 3.5 in.
Courtesy of the Estate of Charles McGill
2015
Reconfigured golf bag parts and hardware
18 x 24 x 22 in.
Collection of Robert Rubin, New York
2014
Reconfigured golf bag parts
Courtesy of the Estate of Charles McGill
2012
Reconfigured golf bags
48 x 48 x 15 in.
Courtesy of the Estate of Charles McGill
2014
Golf club, wood and human hair
Courtesy of the Estate of Charles McGill
2015
Reconfigured golf bag parts on panel
72 x 72 in.
Courtesy of the Estate of Charles McGill
Virginia Series
2012
Reconfigured golf bags
24 x 24 in.
Courtesy of the Estate of Charles McGill
2011
Reconfigured golf bag parts on panel
24 x 24 x 4 in.
Courtesy of the Estate of Charles McGill
2014
Reconfigured golf bag parts
22 x 16 x 10 in.
Courtesy of the Estate of Charles McGill
2013
Reconfigured golf bag parts on wood panel
42 x 26 x 11 in.
Courtesy of the Estate of Charles McGill
2012
Reconfigured golf bags
24 x 24 in.
Collection of Robert Rubin, New York
2012
Reconfigured golf bags
24 x 24 in.
Courtesy of the Estate of Charles McGill
2012
Reconfigured golf bags
24 x 24 in.
Courtesy of the Estate of Charles McGill
2015
Reconfigured golf bag parts
56 x 14 x 14 in.
Courtesy of the Estate of Charles McGill