PRESS RELEASE - Lars Friedrichlarsfriedrich.net/mathieu-malouf-press-and-checklist.pdf · Casual Encounters, 2015 LED monitor, modem, DVR, 16 modified analog sur-veillance cameras,

Lars Friedrich Kantstrasse 154a 10623 Berlin [email protected]

PRESS RELEASE

Mathieu Malouf

Eine Nacht im Tiergarten

11.06. – 25.07.2015

Lars Friedrich is proud to present a second exhibition with the artist Mathieu Malouf- - this time investigating casual relationshipsbetween matter and memory/perception/video/painting/object- discourse, currency- sCULpture- - - - - ,,,.......- - >>>>language systems, media, etc. It will be the first in the gallery‘s new Kantstr. space. This ambitious and complex multimedia installation comprises a cctv system of 16 cameras connected to a DVR constantly recording each one of the abstract paintings on view, completely sub-verting the cognitive associations between painting, networks, images/materials, circulation, etc, etc.

Mathieu Malouf possessess a deep understanding of the way figuration works in the world, and as a painter/videographer/writer- body/discourse- human, his complete refusal of figuration in this exhibition [display]s a level of courage that recalls the efforts of the French Resistance during Germany’s occupation of France in the early 1940’s, to name but a few. This is multiplied by the number of cameras and the transmission of their digital data “stream” over a fiberoptic network (called the Internet), which only add abstraction to this already- abstract (net)work of discourse- objects, elevating it to a level of conceptual complexity rarely seen before on screen or in a gallery.

What can be seen on those canvases defies the boundaries of language, but can be hinted at by evoking the artefacts of our de- subjectified reality: pixels, marks, drips, interference, noise, perverted data, bad sectors. They seem to have been painted using paint and a brush, but can we really be sure? Can we even be sure that BRUSH=BRUSH? “BRUSH” is a digital tool in the soft-ware program “photoshop” and is caught in an endless, vertiginous semantic feedback loop with the object used to apply paint on material surfaces. What is, then, the meaning of “gesture”? Is a “gesture” just a seemingly sudden nervous signal originating in the brain commanding the human body to contract muscles or is it in fact, an algorythm, a series of binaries written in code? Asking this question using the many mediums of contemporary art is endlessly interesting.

MARK=MARK? Impossible to be sure. Mark can be a trace on a piece of cloth, or maybe a guyencountered in a park at night. Maybe Mark is smoking a cigarette. Is Mark’s body real or is it just “data”? Does the popular smartphone app “GrubHub” deliver food- data or does food- data deliver... “GrubHub”?

And if, therefore, the Spectacle is an “app”, who is the User?

As the wind whispers the word- binary “whatever”, we are reminded of the relevance of systems theory in regards to absolutely whatever and the enduring relevance of abstract painting- - a powerful weapon to combat the Spectacle. Resisting open pressures to become images, the works shown here in behind so many “layers” of abstraction favor anonymous material encounters, dérive- ing down a spiral- shaped, downward spatio- temporal “vector”, etc etc etc etc


Mathieu MaloufCasual Encounters, 2015LED monitor, modem, DVR, 16 modified analog sur-veillance cameras, copy of Text Zur Kunst and DSLBroadband connection to the internetDimensions Variable


Mathieu MaloufDatenstrum, 2015Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas43.3 x 35.4 inches./ 110 x 90 cm


Mathieu MaloufSelfie, 2015Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas43.3 x 35.4 inches./ 110 x 90 cm


Mathieu MaloufCreeper, 2015Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas43.3 x 35.4 inches./ 110 x 90 cm


Mathieu MaloufXJ300, 2015Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas43.3 x 35.4 inches./ 110 x 90 cm


Mathieu MaloufDschingis_Kahn, 2015Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas43.3 x 35.4 inches./ 110 x 90 cm


Mathieu MaloufBlackshadow, 2015Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas43.3 x 35.4 inches./ 110 x 90 cm


Mathieu MaloufBerlin/Safe, 2015Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas43.3 x 35.4 inches./ 110 x 90 cm


Mathieu MaloufFrench Guy, 2015Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas43.3 x 35.4 inches./ 110 x 90 cm


Mathieu MaloufRubbA, 2015Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas43.3 x 35.4 inches./ 110 x 90 cm


Mathieu MaloufTop - Traveller, 2015Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas43.3 x 35.4 inches./ 110 x 90 cm


Mathieu MaloufMr. Hyde, 2015Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas43.3 x 35.4 inches./ 110 x 90 cm


Mathieu MaloufVVerschwindung des Menschen in Daten, 2015Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas75 x 55 inches./ 140 x 190 cm

Documents

PRESS RELEASE - Lars Friedrichlarsfriedrich.net/mathieu-malouf-press-and-checklist.pdf · Casual Encounters, 2015 LED monitor, modem, DVR, 16 modified analog sur-veillance cameras,