This short essay was written for Liam Mugavin’s solo show at the gallery Criteria in Melbourne, May 10th to June 10th 2018.
In Japan there exists one of the world’s most unique architectural traditions: every 20 years since the 7th century the eminent Shinto shrine, the Ise Jingu, is entirely rebuilt. For a short period of time, the old shrine and its new copy stand side by side, noticeably different in the appearance of their wood, one brown and aged, the other yellow and young, while their mysterious treasure, an ancient sacred mirror purportedly wrapped in thousands of layers of fabric, is moved from the old shrine to the new, before the old shrine is dismantled.
This rebuilding comprises the main interest for Western audiences, contrasting as it does with the conventional understanding of ancient buildings and their natural weathering into ruins. But the story doesn’t end with the rebuilding, because the wood that is reclaimed from the dismantled 20 year old shrine is still in excellent condition. Considered sacred, the wood is shipped around Japan to smaller Shinto shrines and used for maintenance and repair. With this tradition, Japanese Shinto has formalised a system of repair and reuse that is deeply embedded in their most religious practices.
Strongly influenced by Japanese craft and spending much of his time in Japan, Liam Mugavin has similarly, though with less ritual, made furniture from Japanese farmhouses that show off the complex and otherwise hidden wood joinery. These are knowledge containers: communicating aspects of a traditional architectural technology that resists earthquakes and conserves material. In these works for his first solo show in Australia, Mugavin transforms timber from dismantled inner Sydney homes into chairs and a bench. The wood is cut in dynamic, contemporary angles, but with a casualness that belies a deep respect for history and the craft of building; the mark of which is likewise visible in their slots and notches. History and age speaks through the unfinished surfaces on the the backs and legs, but note the great given to the converse seating surfaces. These are stripped back to present contrasting tones and views, natural cracks meticulously filled, and then finished to a satin texture desiring of human touch. In these treatments and in the compositions of planes that create the form of furniture, Mugavin forgoes pretence and does precisely what is required, no more and no less.
