December 3, 2012 – January 26, 2013

 

 

This exhibition closes a cycle of works that starts in 2010 with the “metaméricos”, articulated wooden and brass works composed of equal parts that resemble organic geometries such as arthropods.

In Running River, the wood, brass and steel structures offer a more accurate sense of connection and dialogue. These structures evoke the idea of trajectory and narrative. Their “lexicon” conveys an idea of discourse, through the articulation of parts that are resignified by the proposed combinations. Thus, the wood’s original voice is silenced in order to engage in a new discourse, assimilating the flowing currents of rivers.

 

 

Ceremony, the exhibition’s title, is taken from the first single released by the influential English electronic rock band New Order in 1981. New Order’s members originally made up the seminal post-punk band Joy Division until the suicide of its lead singer Ian Curtis in 1980. New Order was a key artistic influence for Matthew during his youth – he saw the band live in concert countless times – with the song Ceremony signifying both a violent and abrupt artistic and aesthetic end, as well as an uncertain new beginning. Matthew’s exhibition will present primarily monochromatic works in black, white, and gold that characterize this liminal, in-between state and will feature repurposed materials, such as garbage bags, used bricks, screws, and more. With Ceremony Matthew continues his ongoing investigation into the embedded relationship between abstract painting and music.

Russell Maltz’s most recent works, which began in January 2004, and constitutes an ongoing project, which this proposal is a part, engages the action of fabrication, transportation, painting, assembly, disassembly and integrating the work’s elements into the public realm while mapping the element of time and duration. These works consist of palettes of cinder block, stacked and placed at construction sites, PVC Pipe, bundled plank and lumber. As such, they are represented in their raw physical state that convey the concept of semblance, an assembly of everything they are; an ordered representation of the unseen process, that go into their making. Day-Glo paint is applied as “material on material” and defines areas or zones on the raw blocks. During this phase as the transformation process is now initiated, the work assumes the identity of a “painted object”, a static representative state, in which it can be viewed or evaluated according to the established values of art criticism and theory.

 

 

For this exhibition, Valdivieso shows in the form of an intimate viewing, responding to the size of the physical space and her own works. The rest of the series of Paper Folding will be simultaneously on view at the Miami Art Museum, as part of New Work Miami 2013, and at Dimensions Variable for her solo show.

Unlike production photographs that are by nature a form of re-enactment, Valdivieso’s photographs mirror dynamic compositions, originated by an indefinite process of manual and digital manipulation. In her work, she uses prints that pass through a process of been torn, painted over with gouache, glued with paint chips, then re-photographed, re-scanned, and manipulated with computer software. The order can change and be repeated multiple times. After being printed, the photographs are folded to give the illusion of a painted canvas, freeing them from negotiations with additional decorative components such as the frame or the glass.

“My recent work stands for something in particular. The images express concept and material, but lack specific narratives. They seek to deconstruct the fetishization of photographic technology and realism. Insisting on an endless deferral of meaning, avoiding romantic notions of transcendent artistic creation in or of itself. They layer further geometries atop the picture surface, while embedding a sense of temporal and topographic movement within the image. They are nothing more than what they are: simple paper objects”.