02 Jun 2010

Matt Calderwood - Shatterproof at Maria Stenfors, London

Maria Stenfors is proud to present Shatterproof - an exhibition of new works by Matt Calderwood. This will be Calderwood's first London based solo show in 3 years and a continuation of Matt's exploration of the turning point where power and strength flips into catastrophic failure or more often the focus is on the point just before the crash when thought and suspense hangs in the air. The gallery space will be divided into different sections and show installations of sculpture, video and photograms.

In the darkness of an improvised photographic darkroom a standard red wine glass is placed on a piece of photographic paper, it is stamped upon and smashed, shattering across the paper, shards of glass cut and indent the paper recording the violence of the action. The resulting mess is exposed with a camera flash and the developed image is a surprisingly photographic proof of the shattering. The 'Glass' photogram was shown for the first time 1999 in Contemporary Magazine as an artist project. Matt has revisited this work over the years since then. This will be the first time it is included in a solo exhibition.

Nine identical, large, black rubber objects are stacked like a puzzle, interlocking and tessellating in 3 dimensions, recalling minimalist sculpture by the likes of Robert Morris, Sol Lewitt and Tony Smith. The humorous and fetishistic associations of rubber and the transient nature of the resulting sculptures temper the apparent austerity of minimalism. Only when the rubber objects are placed and put together, working with the forces of friction and gravity does the sculpture manifest itself. From a philosophical standpoint we are ultimately dealing with the concept of power. Where power only exists when exercised against something (or someone) else and is underpinned by structural conditions.. As an ongoing performative work the sculptures will be dismantled and reconfigured at random intervals throughout the exhibition.

These works straddle the fine line implicit in the title of the exhibition. Shatterproof on the one hand is robust and invulnerable to stress and on the other, more tenuously; it could be evidence or proof of a shattering, a total collapse, and a failure, glass versus boot.

Matt Calderwood is represented by Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam and included in numerous public and private collections. Current group exhibitions include 'Julia Stoschek Collection - I want to see how you see', Deichtorhallen Hamburg, 'La Part des Coses Episode 3 (Still Life)' Mains d'oeuvres Paris. Recent larger group exhibitions have included Milton Keynes Gallery, Kettles Yard Cambridge and National Gallery Zimbabwe.