ART CITIES:Paris-Rodrigo Matheus

Rodrigo Matheus, Valeur Instable, 2018, Documents, threads and pins, 122 x 180 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia-Paris/Brussels, Photo: Bertrand HuetBorn in 1974, the Brazilian artist Rodrigo Matheus is one of the most promising artists of his generation. His work revolves around his encounters with the materials and objects found in daily life at urban settings and the scraps from consumption-based society. These elements are often displaced into the exhibition facility and employed as building blocks for his artworks

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Galerie Nathalie Obadia Archive

Throughout his career, Rodrigo Matheus constantly alludes to the universe of major corporations, at times exploring it by establishing fictitious businesses to which he attributes authorship of his pieces. He thus configures a vision of design and industry as a field of power relations. “City of Stars”, Rodrigo Matheus’ first solo exhibition in Paris marks a major turning point in his artistic and conceptual practice, who has been based in France for the last four years. The title comes from a brutalist architectonic complex called “La cité des Etoiles” in Givors in the Rhône, the comples is a remarkable realisation of the architect Jean Renaudie. It was built between 1974 and 1981 and labelled “Heritage of the XXth century” in 2003. This group of housing becomes established carefully on an exceptional natural site, the hill Saint-Gérald and is characterised by an unique architectural and urban shape. This one translates the concerns of Jean Renaudie on housing and town planning. Rodrigo Matheus, imbued by Brazilian brutalist architecture, wished to create works that would fluctuate between an homage to and an interrogation on this architecture in France. In this exhibition, he reflects on the suburb as a space of social construction and creativity. The sculptures’ forms adhere to the technical drawings of Jean Renaudie’s buildings. They underline the diagonals and the lack of symmetry, while also responding to the strategy of spacial organization. Inside, the subdivisions reveal niches, living spaces that welcome a range of materials and objects from daily life. Rodrigo Matheus appropriates Renaudie’s architecture and lives inside it in real life: his studio is located inside the Ivry-sur-Seine development. Rodrigo Matheus’s imposing and subtle sculptures overturn the transition from horizontal to vertical, from blueprint to realization, from idea to materiality. By inverting and distorting the orientations, Rodrigo Matheus reveals a new perception and understanding of these architectures that are devoid of right angles. Rough, protruding, but also clever and harmonious, these sculptures give tangibility to this vast, concrete architecture, which is impossible to grasp in its entirety. With a critical gaze, Rodrigo Matheus explores the social and political narratives that are intrinsic to these places. The pedestals, also made of concrete, confirm the brutalist character of these creations and establish an ambiguous dialogue between the different scales. Presented in the atrium where light filters in, a sculptural installation magnifies these materials in all their simplicity. This sky, studded with black ropes and dusted with delicately suspended tulle, brings a lightness and softness to the large-scale installation. Contrary to the concrete, the tulle and ropes soften the rough, frontal reality. The walls are hung with works on paper that confirm the delicacy and subtlety that Rodrigo Matheus masters. These collages of geometric envelopes play on our perception with their chromatic nuances, which confer two dimensions: one is flat, induced by the frontality of the color brown; and the other subtle and deep, cream-colored. In addition, the delicate paper compositions titled “push pins” seem to tell stories suspended in time. They are assemblages of documents, dating from the early 20th century, showing commercial transactions. Rodrigo Matheus appropriates these papers by hanging them to delicate threads. Pinned to the back of the frame, they are juxtaposed in a variety of compositions.

Info: Galerie Nathalie Obadia, 18 rue du Bourg-Tibourg, Paris, Duration: 5/4-1/6/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.nathalieobadia.com

Rodrigo Matheus, Courbe de Temps, 2018, Documents, threads and pins, 180 x 122 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia-Paris/Brussels, Photo: Bertrand Huet
Rodrigo Matheus, Courbe de Temps, 2018, Documents, threads and pins, 180 x 122 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia-Paris/Brussels, Photo: Bertrand Huet

 

 

Rodrigo Matheus, Mask, 2018 Envelopes, 109 x 86,5 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia-Paris/Brussels Photo: Clément Rougelot
Rodrigo Matheus, Mask, 2018 Envelopes, 109 x 86,5 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia-Paris/Brussels Photo: Clément Rougelot

 

 

Rodrigo Matheus, Prototype, 2019 Honeycomb cardboard, aerated concrete, mortar, 92 x 56 x 40 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia-Paris/Brussels Photo: Clément Rougelot
Rodrigo Matheus, Prototype, 2019 Honeycomb cardboard, aerated concrete, mortar, 92 x 56 x 40 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia-Paris/Brussels Photo: Clément Rougelot