LA PHOTO DE LA SEMAINE

My New Year's Card for 2011.

The Paris Correspondence School : Mail Art Cadvre Exquis Opens 16 December 2010 Galerie Sparts

The MAIL ART 2010 exhibition is this year's answer to unpaid bills, junk mail and the Tapis D'Orient flyers that litter your hallways.

The artists involved have long irritated post office workers, mailmen and women, and in general created havoc where the postal system is concerned. And not only in France, but world wide. (Me, too). 

Click here to see the artist list.

A strange and wonderful mail art cadavre exquis, organized by Christian Balmier, where four artists work on a piece in a round, some 25 examples of this surrealist game will be on view at beginning Thursday, December 16, 2010 at Galerie SPARTS  41, rue de Seine - 75006 PARIS.


Among the artists involved:  

Jean-Michel ALBEROLA, Jean-Paul ALBINET, Christian BALMIER, BEN VAUTIER, Yvon BOHERS, Alain BRESSON, José-Garcia CORDERO, Charlélie COUTURE, Henri CUECO, Pierre DESSONS, Hervé DI ROSA, Philippe DRUILLET, Yann DUGAIN, Marc GIAI-MINIET, Gérard GUYOMARD, Abraham HADAD, Michel HERGIBO, Michel HOSSZÙ, Pierre JOINUL, Eliane LARUS, Gérard LE CLOAREC, Yves LÉVÊQUE, LJUBA, Fédérica MATTA, Jérôme MESNAGER, Ricardo MOSNER, Mehdi QOTBI, RABA, Matthew ROSE, Sélim SAIAH, Sacha SOSNO, Roland TRUC, Béatrice TURQUAND D'AUZAY, Michel TYSZBLAT, Vladimir VELICKOVIC, Jacques VIMARD and William WILSON.

Paris Relax : Japan

Beautiful article on my work from Japanese writer and health/body advisor, Chico Shigeta: Paris Relax.

She discusses my Rubens Rounding Third Baseball Stamps and other projects... Read Japanese?

http://parisrelax.exblog.jp/12444347/

BOY'S LIFE : The Book

Some years ago I came upon this old French ledger book and decided to turn it into another of my books.  BOYS' LIFE.

I cut and pasted and painted and glue and tore and gouged and turned the pages to work on another spread.  The entire process took me about a week and a half and the result is a heavily glued and painted and collaged and tells a non-narrative story of how a boy ventures out into the world and encounters God, love, sex, friendship and drunk driving.

The book contains 48 spreads.  I have exhibited it only once, in Miami, in 2005.

There is quite a bit of text in BOY'S LIFE, but it doesn't borrow from the magazine of the same name at all. Some might remember BOYS LIFE as the Boy Scout magazine that circulated widely in the 60s and early 70s detailing the true life adventure stories, and quite a few fictional stories about boys working the wilderness, or figuring out how to make a buck (cutting lawns, cleaning out garages, shoveling snow or doing good deeds).  There was plenty too about making things (motorized noise for your bike – a playing card and clothespin) and plenty to buy – knives, radio kits, bikes, boots, tents, seeds (another money making venture kit). I loved the optimism of these magazines and since my boyhood was not as positive as those who played in the pages of these publications, my book is more like a manual that really doesn't help anyone to anything.

The texts are coded in simple way and combined with images fill out the young boy's dream of making himself more real. You'll find a number of dogs, birds, letters, photographs and abstractions here (his death dream), along with a somewhat double image of many pieces like the pages above.

Contact me for information on this or my other books.

Max Ernst

A PERFECT FRIEND : PRINTS FOR SALE

A Perfect Friend, a series of 1930s surrealist-inspired collage works I produced in 2003, then turned into large format (76 x 56 cm) prints on fine Arches paper (edition: 3, although only a single print was produced at the time), are available at Janet Miller's Soma Gallery.

There are approximately 30 prints remaining from the prints made at the University of Nebraska Omaha, under the guidance of master printer Garry Day.

Each print is packaged with a foam core back and plastic protection wrap, ready to frame. You can order them direct from Janet Miller; many of these prints are viewable on my main web site.

Price per print: $500.

These print works have been exhibited in Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, New York, Washington D.C.  A complete book of all A Perfect Friend prints should be out soon.

ART SALES: NEW WORKS (WHERE DOES IT ITCH?)

Recently launched, Art Works, offers a range of new works, older works, artist proofs, stamp sheets, and terribly unusual objects for sale.

New: More than 120 collage works on paper from the series Where Does It Itch?

Each piece is 125 € and includes postage anywhere in the world.

Visit the site, click here.

(Hanging) Toy Art : MUBE Brazil

My entry for this Toy Art project at MUBE in São Paulo, Brazil was not to play with it but to hang it, darn it. 

He looks like Felix the Cat and Felix is in a fix he can't get out of...today.

Background is my Flutterbys collage, 2010. The Exhibition opens in Feburary, 2010 and is curated by Angela Ferrara.

Chez Gisèle

Simone de Beauvoir, 1952. Photo by Gisèle Freund

Gisèle Freund (1912-2000), the famed German-born French photographer lived above me for many years in Paris.

Freund photographed James Joyce at Sylvia Beach's bookstore (now Shakespeare & Company), just after the publication of Ulysses, spending a day with the author. She subsequently photographed the Parisian surrealists and literary lights of the 1930s and early 1940s.  She fled France when the Nazis invaded and headed to South America, Central America and Mexico where she met the leading writers and artists of that time including Jorge Luis Borges, José Clement Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueros and Diego Rivera among many others.

Her life is told in the photographs she made, and she made thousands of them, essentially documenting 20th century modernism and its leading lights. 

When she passed away in Paris in March 2000, many of her objects were put out on the street, among them the name cards for the slides she shot.  Around the same time the door buzzer to our building was changed and I acquired the old one, reinserting some of the subjects Freund photographed Assemblage constructed out of the former door buzzer of my apartment house in Paris. Click on the work, Chez Gisèle to see who lives on the 5th floor.

This work (Chez Gisèle) is available for purchase.  Contact for info.

YOU → ME At Yep & Youp Gallery Paris

A certain number of my YOU–>ME silkscreen prints are now available at Yep & Youp Gallery, 57 Rue Daguerre 75014 Paris.  The edition is limited to 100 with about 20 artist proofs.

Yep & Youp Gallery is a small boutique catering to children with hand made toys and furnishings.  It's a great little place, just south of Montparnasse.

The print is available from Yep & Youp for 100 euros. Click on the images to enlarge.

Also available from Keep Calm Gallery.

Amelia's Magazine : Interview

Interview by Kat Phan Amelia's Magazine (UK) on Scared But Fresh, A Book About Death and Spelling With Scissors: Amelia's Magazine.

Excerpt: Matthew’s most recent project, Scared But Fresh, is a dislocated love story exploring the sense and non-sense, which I was lucky enough to catch at Orange Dot Gallery, a lovely new exhibition space in the heart of Bloomsbury. By his own admission, Matthew is interested in ‘creating works to see them for himself’ but as a by-product of his imagination, his mesmerising creations prompt the viewer to garner thoughts of their own. ...
 
How old were you when you realised you wanted to be an artist?
I couldn’t have been more than six years old when my mother and aunt dragged me to The Brooklyn Museum to see Van Gogh. The lines went around the block and I couldn’t understand what the fuss was about; I was hungry, my feet hurt and being small, I was suffocating in this cloud of wool coats. Once inside the galleries, however, I caught my first glimpse of what has proven to be a very nourishing world… I stayed close to my mother and aunt for about 10 minutes but soon enough got lost (purposely) and quietly pushed my way through the crowds to get up close to Van Gogh’s brilliant colors, these vibrating landscapes – in particular, the painting he produced in the Arlesian sun, Almond Branches in Bloom (1890). It turned out to be one of the pieces he produced the year he died of a self-inflicted gun shot wound. I never forgot the color and intelligence behind this painting, and I slowly began to look for this “art experience” on my own. 


READ MORE, CLICK HERE.

Paintings: Silkscreen Edition Text Works

Recently, my silkscreen edition Paintings, sold at auction. The series from 1999, is an edition of 13 with three artist proof sets. Ink on Paper. Sheet measuring 30" by 22 1/2".

The series is comprised of enlarged museum post card legends (captions) and include "works" by Rembrandt, Munch, Giotto, Morandi, Vermeer and other masters. 

These works stem from an ongoing interest in "word as image," and the texts in various languages intimate a range of meanings (images) to differing language speakers.  The "names" of these paintings, translated by someone, presumably in a large museum or indeed, in a post card (printing) facility, are rife with typographical errors, and grammatical mistakes. The translations themselves are quite a bit off, due, one can assume, to the "unofficial" nature of the translations and the business approach to pumping out product...for museum goers.

The pieces – silkscreen on fine art paper - also tell the story of a kind of image removal, as the original texts lifted from post card captions, enlarged several times on common photocopiers, then turned into a positive (black) film, then transferred to screen, and finally printed tell a story of how texts (and images) are subtly transformed through printing.

This series is permanently installed in the Boca Raton Museum of Fine Art, Boca Raton, Florida.

Click on the essay (right) by Chris Mooney to enlarge and read.

There are several sets still available.  (There is one framed set in Paris; the others are unframed). Price: 3500 euros (7 prints) unframed.

Contact me if you are interested in purchasing a set.

Flutterbys

Flutterbys, collage on board. 50 x 70 cm. 2010.

SCARED BUT FRESH LAST DAYS

Scared But Fresh runs through October 30 at The Orange Dot Gallery in London. More than 50 collage works on canvas, board and paper, plus terribly unusual objects and the series America, 12 works on paper that pretty much sum up the American story.

The gallery is open all day Saturday, October 30.  Address: 54 Tavistock Place, London.  Tube: Russell Square.

Some press links from the exhibition:

IDOL MAGAZINE.
JOTTA MAGAZINE.
LIVING PROOF MAGAZINE.
CURATED MAGAZINE.

Photos: Japanese art lovers take a seat under the YOU–>ME silkscreen print.  The print is available for £100, unframed.

Orange Dot Gallery : Bloomsbury Festival London

Scared But Fresh at The Orange Dot Gallery in London will participate in the Bloomsbury Festival (October 22 & 23, 2010).  I will be at the gallery during the weekend to give a talk about my work and other art mysteries, as well as sign copies of MASTERS: COLLAGE, the new book out from Lark Books (2010). 

In addition to more than 50 collage works on view, prints and terribly unusual objects will also be available, including Rubens Rounding Third (A3 sized stamp art sheet), and the new YOU–>ME silkscreen limited edition. 

The talk begins at 3 PM, Saturday, October 22. The Orange Dot Gallery, 54 Tavistock Place, London.  Tube: Russell Square.

Click here to view the Bloomsbury Festival Program.

Image: YOU–>ME, silkscreen; edition: 100. Price: £100. Click image to enlarge.

The Art Of Collage: Northern Kentucky University

Originating from the wildly successful publication MASTERS: COLLAGE, a monster book surveying contemporary collage works, the Northern Kentucky University art galleries, directed by David Knight, put on the exhibition, The Art of Collage (August - September 2010).

Featured are two series of mine, The Storm Warning collage works from 2005 and Twinkies, from 2004/05.

There are in each series, two distinct collage approaches.  In the Storm Warning group, above, a central figure is dominant with text via stencil and paint.  The Twinkies pair mimics the "all over" concept with tiny bits of 1950s/1960s cartoon figures dropped at random on a wet glue canvas surface, sanded down to a smooth surface and then bleached to remove a good part of the color.

I have made nearly 100 of these "all over" collage works, each one a time-consuming experiment in color and "readability." From a distance they seem like color squares or rectangles, while up close the bits of words in French, Italian, English and sometimes German, tell an entire story from a 1960s comic book. But the reading is tough going, as the words are cut and torn, and sanded down to their bones.

Click directly on the photos to enlarge and see the details.

These works are available.  For price inquiries, please send an email.

Scared But Fresh : Open During Frieze Art Fair

When the Frieze Art Fair opens on October 14, 2010 in London,  Scared But Fresh at The Orange Dot Gallery will be open as well.  International art collectors and lovers of all things surreal are welcome to the gallery.

The exhibition is Matthew Rose's first solo show in London. In Scared But Fresh, the artist takes his signature "Spelling With Scissors" to an English and international public in a kind of Love Story. The works on board, canvas, bottles, boxes as well as silkscreen and stencil works, are surreal and intriguing, touching upon sex, death, time and space.

"It's my theory of everything," says the artist. "A 21st century handbook." 

On view are more than 50 collage works, prints, and terribly unusual objects. Special to the exhibition are the limited edition You–> Me silkscreen print the artist produced this summer in Paris. In addition, Masters: Collage, a new book focused on acknowledged masters in the art of collage will also be available for purchase.

Click on the images to enlarge.

Click for Map For The Orange Dot Gallery: 54 Tavistock Place, London.  Tube : Russell Square.

The Orange Dot Gallery: 54 Tavistock Pl, Camden Town, Greater London WC1H 9, UK

Crane TV at Scared But Fresh in London

The film crew from http://crane.tv/ just after filming an interview with me at the Scared But Fresh exhibition in London.  Shekha, far left, led the interview. The film piece should go live the week of October 11, 2010.

Seeking Kali

LIP, a collage for the project Seeking Kali.

SCARED BUT FRESH VERNISSAGE/OPENING 5 OCT AT THE ORANGE DOT GALLERY LONDON

SCARED BUT FRESH: An Exhibition of Collages and Unusual Objects from Matthew Rose. 

PLEASE JOIN US FOR THE PRIVATE VIEW OF ‘SCARED BUT FRESH’

THE ORANGE DOT WILL ALSO BE CELEBRATING THE OPENING OF AN ENTIRE NEW EXHIBITION SPACE - THE BASEMENT.

TUESDAY 5TH OCTOBER / 6PM– 9PM
RSVP ESSENTIAL: danielle@theorangedot.co.uk

SCARED BUT FRESH RUNS THROUGH OCTOBER 31.

THE ORANGE DOT & SCARED BUT FRESH WILL ALSO BE PART OF THE BLOOMSBURY FESTIVAL. DATES: Saturday 23 October, all day; Sunday 24 October, all day.

Along with the works on display and the exclusive prints, signed exhibition posters and copies of Masters: Collage will be available to purchase. 
 

The Orange Dot Gallery
54 Tavistock Place Bloomsbury 
London, WC1H 

FOR A PREVIEW OF WORKS AND DETAILS ON THE EXCLUSIVE PRINTS CREATED ESPECIALLY FOR THE EXHIBITION PLEASE VISIT THE GALLERY WEBSITE: http://www.orangedotgallery.co.uk

IMAGE: ABOVE, POSTER OF L'ORANGERIE.  RIGHT: JOSEPH CORNELL, BOTTLE COLLAGE, 2007.

DOWNLOAD & PRINT THE POSTER FREE (15MB, PDF).

Your Art Here: Spelling With Scissors

I've entered my full on, wall to wall to wall from ceiling to floor installation work Spelling With Scissors in the H&M contest, Your Art Here.  Take a look, vote (click on the stars), and survey the other artist proposals.  If you're an artist, submit your own entry.  It's free.

MATTHEW ROSE Spelling With Scissors: Your Art Here (Vote).

The End Of The World

THE END OF THE WORLD (REALLY BUILT TO LAST) is Paris-based artist  Matthew Rose's surreal fantasy about the fragility of world we  live in and the end of the world we've built.

"The end of the world is in fact a created fiction with a decidedly real dimension," says the artist. "It's a dream and yet it's one we live in, walk through, sleep off. I'm reminded of James Joyce's famous line: 'History is a nightmare I'm trying to awaken from.'"

Based on an original  collage from 2008, THE END OF THE WORLD, reports from the frontiers of  the real and dream worlds, where foods and animals, naughty little boys  and errant little girls enter into the visual field and run, jump, hang  and float in and around an assortment of human narratives that are  veering dangerously out of control.

This work, and others in the  series, appears in Masters: Collage (Sterling Publishing/Lark Books, USA May  2010). The print is available exclusively from Keep Calm Gallery London.  There are only 45 prints remaining in the edition of 85. Price: £38.00. (Note: The new shipment to Keep Calm is arriving the week of September 20, so be assured there are prints to purchase).

[Click images to enlarge and see detail.]

• Limited edition of 85
• Signed, dated & numbered by the artist
• Giclee print on Hahnemuhle paper
• 290mm by 290mm (11½ by 11½ inches)

The original collage measures 50 x 50 cm, and is available.  Contact Matthew Rose for information.

The remaining 45 prints in the edition were expertly produced by Mariela Cadiz working with Burning Boy Press.  Mariela, based in Paris, produced fine art, grand format ink jet prints for photographers and artists of the highest quality.

MASTERS: COLLAGE Book Signing At The Orange Dot Gallery London October 6, 2010

MASTERS: COLLAGE – As part of Orange Dot Gallery's exhibition Scared But Fresh with Matthew Rose opening October 6, a limited number of copies of the recently published Masters: Collage will be available to buy from the gallery. Each copy, signed and dated by the artist, will be available for £17.99.

Edited by Randel Plowman, this gorgeously produced volume of contemporary collage artists appeals to beginners, professionals, collectors and general enthusiasts.  The book showcases a breathtaking mix of techniques and styles from 40 of the leading collage artists currently working across the globe.
 
Along with Matthew Rose,  artists include: Cecil Touchon, Jonathan Talbot, Lynne Perrella, Lynn Whipple, Robert Mars, Janet Jones, Liz Cohen, Robert Hunt, Baby Smith and James Michael Starr among others.

Looking at techniques from traditional cut-and-paste to digital to collage with paint or encaustic, and styles ranging from wildly playful and colourful to evocative, almost monochrome images Masters: Collage examines a wide range of disciplines within collage. Each highlighted master takes centre stage in an informative eight-page feature that includes nearly a dozen gorgeous, high-quality photos plus a short essay by curator Randel Plowman placing the impressive work and its creator in context.

Versatility, innovation, inspiration – that’s what the Masters series offers artists and crafters and this superb new collection offers a stunning look at contemporary collage work from over 40 leading artists. An exhibition of works from the Masters book, Lost and Found: The Art of Collage, was recently launched at Northern Kentucky University. Matthew Rose will sign copies of the book during the opening of Scared But Fresh October 6, 2010.

[Image above: Cover, Masters Collage; above, right: Matthew Rose, "My Situation," 2008, collage on board, 43 x 21 cm]

SCARED BUT FRESH : LE LOOK

Silvia Marsano of the Fondazione Volume! in Rome, sports the SCARED BUT FRESH bracelet, a small item I created for the exhibition in London.

Silvia was nice enough to model the bracelet on a beautiful day in Rome in September.

"I like this name," she said.  "It's true. Scared but fresh...of course."

Black on white, the cotton ruban tissé ties nicely around the wrist and should be worn until it falls off. Which could be never.

Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Only 250 of these very fashionable pieces were produced; they measure 30 cm long. The bracelets will be given away at the opening, so do come and tie one on. Info: Orange Dot Gallery London October 6 2010.

Second Hand Clock

Second Hand Clock, a working machine with only a tick tocking second hand. It echos various Fluxus time pieces, and always gives the right time. (You'll have to supply the right place). SHC is a philosophical, poetic object, a haiku Martin Heidegger might enjoy.

This piece, along with other unusual objects, will be part of Scared But Fresh at The Orange Dot Gallery, London.  Opening October 6, 2010.

Second Hand Clock, 2008. 21 cm in diameter.  Altered object, painted. One AA battery.

Smoking

Smoking, collage on magnum bottle, 2010.

This piece and other bottleworks (Flaschenwerken) will be on view at Scared But Fresh, Orange Dot Gallery London, opening October 6, 2010.

Questions: Contact.

Orange Dot Gallery London: Scared But Fresh

Scared But Fresh, the exhibition at Orange Dot Gallery in London, opens October 6 2010. If you would like to see the event on FaceBook, and join, click here.

The poster for the exhibition is available free for download in a high resolution PDF.  Download the poster.

KEYMAT Collage Studio Works

In August 2010, Keith Donovan and I collaborated on some three dozen collage pieces during a massive thunder and lightening storm that swept the French countryside some three hours south of Paris. We worked throughout the day and into the night, producing this series using a variety of tampons, collage, paint and chance.

Collaborative work is a fascinating and often difficult process.  During the production of these pieces, Keith related the collaborative story of artists Dieter Roth and Richard Hamilton in 1976. An exhibition of the works opened at Galeria Cadaqués.  Each picture was accompanied by a drawn or painted certificate as well as a small image of sausages – meant for the dogs.  Their efforts were dubbed the Rotham Certificates.


I've collaborated with a number of artists in the past including John Himmelfarb, a Chicago-based artist, and the visual poet, John Bennett, the director of Special Collections, Ohio State University. 

The process of handing over an image to another artist sharpens – or dissolves – the ego.  A little section of a piece one grows attached to is sent into the forge to be changed, printed over, obliterated or changed for the benefit of the whole. Sure, there were arguments.

The works, which were helped along by a hungry cat named Vermine, each roughly 25 x 17 cm in size, with a series of five works at 50 x 34 cm.  Pictured here, above are Hard and below, a view of the studio in Le Johet, France. Click on the images to enlarge.

You ––> Me : Silkscreen Print

You ––> Me : Silkscreen print, after collage, 47.5 x 38 cm, three colors, on Arches Rives, 300 gram paper. Edition: 100. All signed and numbered.  20 artist proofs were also produced on a variety of fine art papers, along with several prints on fine art papers in gold, silver, and pink.

The print is a little piece of visual poetry, a sort of lexical love song, a Valentine.

The print was published by Burning Boy Press. Burning Boy Press produces mostly high-quality digital prints in Paris.

The original collage, measures 47.5 x 38 cm, dates from 1999.  Exhibited in Berlin at Galerie Tristesse (2006) and in Paris at Bernard Matussière (2009), the original is available for purchase. [Contact for price].

You ––> Me, 2010, was printed at Michel Hosszù's atelier in Paris in a single day.  Photograph of Michel Hosszù (below) taken in front of his massive silkscreen piece "Grimaces" in his studio in the Bastille section of Paris.

Michel Hosszù designed the screens for printing using three separate colors – two shades of gray and one final black.  Together we moved through the edition, racking up the pieces (photo, right), finally playing with the registration for some of the proofs and off-edition works at the end of the day.  The gold, silver and pink pieces were spray painted prior to printing. Two pieces – one gold, one silver – were printed on A3-sized canvases.

Of note: As a boy I was often working with my father in Queens, New York, producing silkscreens for his retail clients.  The screens – some as large as four meters wide and with as many as 28 colors – were beautiful in themselves.  The variety of paints and lacquers and the teamwork needed to pull the giant squeegee across such a giant screens remain potent images in my mind about the process of reproducing images. There is a gorgeous (although somewhat toxic) perfume involved in silkscreening.

As a teenager, I held many jobs in the silkscreen shop, from stretching the dylon fabric over the frames to spreading out the emulsion, position the frame for printing, then blotting out the tiny holes left after the UV printing lamp hit the acetate positive with the image.  Back then the image silhouettes were often cut out of ruby lith, and not punched out of a laser printer via Photoshop file.  It's a process that combines photography, handiwork, low end technology, but with spectacular results.  Sadly, a great deal of silkscreen production has been taken over by digital printing; and while both are wonderful, there is nothing like the creation of a silkscreen print. It's beautiful and delightfully messy.

The YOU --> ME prints are available through Keep Calm Gallery while a few will also be available at my exhibition SCARED BUT FRESH at Orange Dot Gallery in London on October 6, 2010.  

To purchase a YOU --> ME print, please contact Keep Calm Gallery, by clicking here.

3 PAILS

3 Pails, sculpture.  Boxes, painted white, with three tin pails suspended with twin, 1999-2000.  50 x 39 x 18 cm each.

To purchase, contact me.

PHOTO: RICK ERICKSON.