David Mach

On Saturday 4 June, David Mach ignited a matchstick-constructed head of Robert Louis Stevenson, an event which may have not been appropriate say, for the Venice Biennale, but given Mach's international repute was all the more effective in Edinburgh. Now aged 45, Mach still recalls with dismay the conflagration of his work some years ago at the Hayward Gallery in London. His 'Polaris', constructed of rubber tyres installed outside the Hayward, was set alight by a disenchanted member of the public who was then unable to extricate himself from the flames and died. Mach has been working in London for two decades. He has works currently planned for exhibition in Korea, Israel, France and at home.