Tony Matelli showing at London Marlborough Contemporary Art Gallery, 6 Albemarle Street
London W1S 4BY, until Dec 16, 2017.
Several impulses strike when looking at Tony Matelli's work. To touch - to wonder what the work is made from - does the food smell ? - are the statues found ?
I'm interested in found work across mediums. The found sound of drag fabulist Dickie Beau. The found verbatim theatre of My Name is Rachel Corrie and Alecky Blythe (an aside, even my own Lost in Peru which is also probably my worse review ever (so far, hah! Alienation and poetic naval gazing, but at least pushing the boundaries of form and style!) but it did find me love). The found poetry or heightened poetry of the likes of Charles Reznikoff.
What transforms an object found into something more? How can it reveal a deeper truth? Does it need to?
Place and performance transform.
As does juxtaposition or enjambment.
A sandwich. In this case almost literally except the food is painted bronze.
Work like this will often produce a superficial response. How hard is it to place a urinal on a plinth? (Duchamp’s famous found art icon / practical joke) Much of where art today provokes such a response. That may be your truth.
I like to judge art differently. Intentionality. History. Thought. The viewer all wraps up in this.
I'm not studied in art. I've read a little. John Berger and Susan Sonntag. The interviews of Francis Bacon. But I reach across several mediums of expression.
So to me. I see this. I immediately recall Di Chirico's Uncertainty of a Poet. (Artist says not influenced by).
There is an absurdity. The impermanent made permanent. The fragile cast into bronze. The real and hyper real being not what you see.
The permanent being found. Made and remade. The old made a new. Sandwiched and juxtaposed.
When I think of Di Chirico I always recall Wendy Cope. And her beautiful funny absurd word play of a poem of the same title (see left)
This takes me to the theatre of the absurd. And where life or found art or #realnews over #fakenews seems more strange and bizarre than the strange and bizarre.
And so here, I am. A playwright of no recent plays. An investor attempting sustainability in a world dominated by short term profit. A multiple parallel identity - husband, son, father being an obvious initial three -
Looking at a banana which is not a banana on an old statue that is not old found in a place where it is not found and as the absurd builds on the absurd - that’s part of the human condition as expressed in art.
If you'd like to feel inspired by commencement addresses and life lessons try: Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes; or JK Rowling on the benefits of failure.
Interested in some more found art, I have some thoughts on watching Dickie Beau and his found sound. The found sound of drag fabulist Dickie Beau.
Cross fertilise. Read about the autistic mind here.