ART CITIES:Geneva-Matthew Porter
Matthew Porter is part of a large group of contemporary artists pushing the boundaries of traditional photographic techniques and blurring the lines of digital and film manipulation. His work often features historical mash- ups, collapsing disparate events and cultural references within a single frame, or in series of tightly edited photographs. What sets Porter apart, however, are his calculated transitions between manipulated and straight photography.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Xippas Gallery Archive
Matthew Porter’s title of the exhibition, “The Sheen, The Shine”, conveys the fundamental importance of light in Matthew Porter’s work. The shine: that which reflects, reacts, and the sheen: that which illuminates, or comes from within, are the two luminous actions in the two series presented in the exhibition. The first room in the exhibition presents a series of photographs with compositions of matter on the floor. These photographs were created in the studio of his father, a sculptor who was influenced by modernism. The images take as their subject the debris of the making of his work, “remains”, unused materials, which take on a new life in front of the camera lens. These constructions are firstly mise en scènes, arranged on the shop floor, then further objects are added, through multiple exposures, in Porter’s own studio. The light dazzles these materials, its shine reacting differently on each surface: a mirror reflects a nearly invisible space off camera, a whitened metal blinds us, and its black shadows create areas of absolute emptiness, a kind of vertigo within the image. The action of the light reflecting on their surfaces brings us closer to a mutation of the objects, towards a new imaginary, like utopian cities or Bauhaus constructions. The second room in the exhibition presents a constellation of thirty pictures of nature, portraits and landscapes. It consists of a series of color and black & white photographs, depicting a fictional place that centers around the construction, abandonment, and rediscovery of a series of dome structures. The location is a tropical island, and several discrete characters make appearances. They are seen performing tasks, but their roles, and the timeline of their involvement, is never clear. Their collective goal seems aspirational—the construction of dome related structures has a history with close ties to utopian idealism and futurist problem solving. Part science fiction, part fantasy, and part narrative riff, the work is a nod to both the real and literary tradition of placing stories of postcolonial hubris in tropical locations. These images, made from stylised explorations of light and color, lead us to another place. The light shines, illuminates, sometimes to such an extent that the subject disappears in a kind of luminous and colorful abstraction. In a way, these photographs release the viewer from a gaze constrained by the history of art, enabling them to enter into a more nostalgic dimension
Info: Xippas Gallery, Rue des Sablons 6 & Rue des Bains 61, Geneva, Duration: 17/1-2/3/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 14:00-18:30, Sat 12:00-17:00, www.xippas.com
