Artist Statement
I want to make apparent the ways that objects and architecture are designed to mediate experience. Spaces like the movie theater, grocery store or bar are aesthetically encoded and require participation and physical interaction. By manipulating the language of commercial space my goal is to reveal systems that serve to orient all things. These systems confuse perceived space with computational space – consumptive modes with social habitus.
In a recent installation entitled 9 Rooms, I made a network of 9 small spaces that formed a 3×3 grid. Each room represented a different type of social environment and contained a range of objects and video works. Through the four separate entry points to the installation, viewers determined their own path through the space and thereby their own experience of the works.
Physical architecture is developing toward the architectonics of a human-user-interface. Representing familiar spaces, my work imagines our material landscape through the conditions of a networked environment. I try to act as an accumulator collecting consumer goods, detritus, and cultural vernacular to form architectural collage. I reproduce icons of cinema, pop culture and contemporary art through genre and pastiche. Objects are in a constant state of fluctuation – so too are the contexts that define those objects. My installations work to locate the modes (personal, political, technological, ontological) that characterize our conditional environment. These modalities can be found through an investigation of desire. My process begins with questions:
What do I want? What do you want? Do I want what I want because I want you to want me? Why do we want what we want? Where do I want what I want? Is where I want what I want the reason for wanting what I want?…
What we want exists as a product of its aggregated context. Using objects of entertainment and pleasurability, I impose metanarrative to the aggregates that control social and infrapersonal desire. My goal is to produce social sculptures that work toward activating our relationship to our surroundings. By confusing the authentic and the inauthentic I create a space for ontological vertigo. Disorientation forces us to reconstruct the physical and metaphysical – the material and the immaterial. My hope in producing alternative modes for understanding desire and context is to reactivate our relationship toward objects and space.
CV
matt-taber.com
EDUCATION
2014 MFA – Columbia University, School of the Arts, New York
2012 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME
2011 BFA – School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2011
Wall in the Hole, Autumn Space Gallery, Chicago IL
THE MACHINE OR THE CONCRETE MASS OF NEGATION AS
THE DREAM OF A PRODUCT THAT EXISTS ACCORDING TO
THE STATUTE OF THE THING, with Sophie Marie Hammer, Alte Saline, Hallein, Austria
Distribution, Studio 1020, 1020 Marshfield, Chicago IL
2010
Portrait, Studio 1020, 1020 Marshfield, Chicago IL
2009
Studio, Studio 1020, 1020 Marshfield, Chicago IL
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2015
Kingston Sculpture Biennial, curated by Bennett Wine, Kingston, NY
Beverly’s at the Skowhegan Annual Awards Dinner, New York, NY
2014
Columbia University MFA Thesis Show, Fischer Landau Center for Contemporary Art, Long Island City, Queens, NY
Networking Tips for Shy People, 200 Livingston Street, Brooklyn NY
Pyramid Scheme, 204 25th Street, Brooklyn NY
2013
Come Together: Surviving Sandy, Curated by the Brooklyn Rail,
Industry City, 220 36th St., Brooklyn, NY
Ora Serrata: The Boundary Between the Retina and the Ciliary Body, 461 W 126, New York, NY
Gramsci Monument, A work in Public Space by Thomas Hirschorn, Bronx, NY
Ball and Cone, Curated by Ken Johnson, Beverly’s, New York, NY
Silhouettes, Fort Hamilton, 3021 Fort Hamilton Parkway, Brooklyn, NY
Devil’s Tower Camp, Beverly’s, 21 Essex Street, New York, NY
After a Pause, It Continued, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Gallery, Columbia University, New York, NY
Autumn Space Benefit, Autumn Space, Chicago, IL
The More Is More, Hauser Gallery, Chicago, IL
2012
O Fortuna, Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany
O Fortuna, 26 Leroy Street, New York, NY
Nite Slutz, A Bar Curated by John Walter, Skowhegan, ME
Paper View, Manhattan Graphics Center, New York, NY
Zeichen Klub Münster (ZKM), FB69, Münster, Germany
Stowage, Gallery Alcatrez, Alte Saline, Hallein, Austria
2011
8 1/2″ x 11″, Studio 1020, 1020 Marshfield, Chicago IL
SAIC BFA Show, Sullivan Gallery, 33 S State St, Chicago IL
2010
High Seasonal Review, Studio 1020, 1020 Marshfield, Chicago
Contextual, Studio 1020, 1020 Marshfield, Chicago IL
2009
Grid, Studio 1020, 1020 Marshfield, Chicago IL
Nippon Steel U.S.A., Inc. Presidential Awards Exhibition, Chicago, IL
White on White, Studio 1020, 1020 Marshfield, Chicago IL
Hyde Park Community Exhibition, Hyde Park Arts Center, Chicago, IL
Spring for the Arts, Scituate Arts Center, Scituate MA
Response, Southern Graphics Conference, Chicago IL
Fresh Prints, Southern Graphics Conference, Chicago IL
2008
Ki Art, Flatiron Gallery, Chicago IL
Artbash, 280 S Columbus, Chicago IL
MOSAIC, 162 N State St, Chicago IL
AWADS AND RESIDENCIES
2013
The Fallen Tower, Intensive Residency with Matthew Ritchie, Detroit, MI
2012
Leroy Neiman Fellowship, Columbia University, New York, NY
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME
2011
Internationale Sommeracademie, Salzburg Austria
Austrian American Prize for Fine Art, Austrian American Foundation
2009
Nippon Steel U.S.A., Inc. Presidential Award, Chicago IL