Curator’s Notes - Matthew Deleget: Pictures at an Exhibition
by Ruth Grover
Curator
Cress Gallery of Art
University of Tennessee Chattanooga
September 2012

The inspiration for the title of Matthew Deleget’s exhibition derives from the musical composition Pictures at an Exhibition written by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky. Mussorgsky penned his composition in 1874 in response to his visit to an actual exhibition in St. Petersburg, Russia. The score simulates the experience of a visitor to the exhibition, a musical interpretation of standing before an individual work of art and mentally absorbing and interpreting its formal qualities, narrative, and meaning. These movements are linked by transitional passages whose tempo references the act of walking from one picture on to another, and whose tone and mood suggest mental reflection.

There have been attempts to determine the exact works of art that inspired Mussorgsky yet the difficulty of recreating an exact visual image from the musical score is problematic. Mussorgsky’s 19th Century musical version remains as the only documentation of that exhibition, the memory of the composer translated to manuscript of staff and note. Mussorgsky’s musical simulation, and stimulation of the senses in its arrangement, becomes a form of abstraction. Abstract things are sometimes defined as those that do not exist in reality or exist only as a sensory experience.

Matthew Deleget’s reductive abstraction creates its own rich sensory experience in response to the broad plurality of our 21st Century world; a world where the idea of any singular reality has been replaced by discoveries of science, advances in industry and technology, the development of the field of psychology, the rapid accumulation of knowledge, and the burgeoning worldwide web whose complexity of content is nonetheless founded upon the simplicity of the binary function.

Deleget’s Pictures at an Exhibition will feature all new work specifically created by the artist in the spaces and dimensions of the Cress Gallery. Merging painting with conceptual, process, and installation strategies, Deleget’s two and three-dimensional works present premise as concrete, thought as object. Each installation is considered as a part of a total entity; each is a movement to be considered within the whole of the gallery. Their elaboration is derived from the pragmatic, the employment of “off the shelf” consumer goods as materials for construction — items familiar to each of us, now posed in a new yet straightforward context as visual predicates, their distilled qualities made visible and tangible.

Deleget’s work is not about “Pop Art”, “Op Art”, nor “Minimal Art”, yet it does build upon those histories. As paint for Deleget is just another material purchased at a hardware store, Deleget’s exhibition is less about painting, and much more about painting as a metaphor, a frame of reference to lead to other thoughts. The conceptual — the abstract — has been both the genesis and the result of “art making” since prehistory as the ability to abstract is considered a trait solely of the human species. While it might be said that abstraction is unconcerned with the literal depiction of the visible world, it can be said reductive abstraction fully engages with the complex and difficult realities of that world in a thoughtful, sincere, and direct manner.

Yet in acknowledgment of the intricacies of conceptual development, Deleget shares another connection with Mussorgsky’s work. Joseph Albers (1988-1976), the internationally renowned abstract painter and theorist, designed the cover for a Command Records 1961 recording of Pictures at an Exhibition. Deleget organized an exhibition of Albers record covers in 2009 that included this album, and it continues to hang on the wall of his apartment to this day.

Image:
Exhibition Announcement
Matthew Deleget, Color Vulture (detail), 2012
3 off-the-shelf white canvases, red, yellow, and blue spotlights
Dimensions variable, canvases 24 x 20 inches each

Matthew Deleget
Pictures at an Exhibition
The Cress Gallery of Art
UTC Fine Arts Center
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
752 Vine Street
Chattanooga, TN 37403
October 9 - December 7, 2012
Lecture: Tuesday, October 9, 5:30 - 6:30pm, followed by an opening reception

The Diane Marek Visiting Artist Series, now in its 7th year at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, announces its 2012-2013 season.

Chattanoogan and supporter of the arts, Diane Marek, began this Series with a vision of bringing visual artists of national reputation to Chattanooga for an intensive schedule of events over multiple days with community and students. The Series provides all an inclusive opportunity for informal, personal contact with the artist towards the goal of demystifying and enlarging perspective about contemporary investigation, practice, and expression in the visual arts. Scheduled activities encourage greater understanding of process and materials, studio and installation practice, the integration of historical trends and other academic disciplines, as well as insight into the life and work of a professional artist today. For UTC art majors, the Series contributes to the depth of their education and includes one-on-one engagement for both the upper and lower level student. The artists of Diane Marek Series also experience the vibrant culture of Chattanooga connecting with individuals across the city and campus.

In conjunction with all Diane Marek Artists’ visits, the UTC Cress Gallery of Art supported by The Friends of the Gallery organizes an exhibition of the artists’ work, a partnership that further sets this Series apart from any similar program at other institutions.

Matthew Deleget begins the Diane Marek Visiting Artist Series this fall with activities in Chattanooga and on the UTC campus October 8 – 11, 2012. Deleget will present a public lecture Tuesday, October 9, at 5:30 pm in the UTC Fine Arts Center followed by an informal reception.

Merging painting with conceptual, process, and installation strategies, Matthew Deleget’s reductive abstraction creates a rich sensory experience in response to the broad plurality of our contemporary world. In addition to his artistic practice, Deleget writes, curates, and advocates for the arts, and is co-founder of the gallery Minus Space, a platform for the international promotion of reductive art located in Brooklyn, NY. Matthew Deleget’s Cress exhibition titled “Pictures at an Exhibition” will open immediately after his October 9 lecture and run through December 7, 2012.

Gallery hours:
Monday – Friday, 9:30am – 7:30pm
Saturday and Sunday, 1:00pm – 4:00pm

Image:
Exhibition Announcement
Matthew Deleget, Color Vulture (detail), 2012
3 off-the-shelf white canvases, red, yellow, and blue spotlights
Dimensions variable, canvases 24 x 20 inches each

ArtObama
382 Atlantic Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11217
October 3, 2012, 7:00-9:30pm (bidding from 7:00-8:30pm)
www.artobama.org

Join us for an auction of exception works by more than 100 American artists who support the re-election of President Barack Obama. View the work and pre-register (strongly recommended) at www.artobama.org . Proxy bids accepted through October 2, 8pm. To make a proxy bid, call 718.781.0354.

$45 at pre-registration or at the door. All proceeds benefit the Obama Victory Fund 2012 and ActBlue, a PAC supporting progressive House and Senate candidates nationwide.

Three Summer MFA Shows Tackle Painting and Its Discontents
by Allison Meier
Hyperallergic
July 26, 2012

“Three current exhibits focusing on recent MFA recipients show that painting is still being utilized by young artists for experimentation, even if they have to totally destroy the canvas with a hammer or fill it with cement…Then there is Matthew Deleget’s frenzied “They Don’t Love You Like I Love You” (2009), where four panels painted with silver were totally smashed by the artist, leaving jagged holes to the empty wall, showing that voids of paintings, at least when they are attacked in such an agressive way, can have just as much emotion as those without blunt force trauma…Art Peña, similar to Matthew Deleget in the Pratt show, has destroyed the place for the paint within the frame, here with a cake of cement in “Attempt 17″ (2012), a statement on artistic trial and error instead of Deleget’s angry love.”

Image:
Matthew Deleget
They Don’t Love You Like I Love You, 2009
Silver monochromes, silver acrylic paint on 4 panels, hit with a hammer
16 x 60 inches overall, each panel 16 x 12 inches

Notations: The Cage Effect Today at Hunter College Times Square Gallery
by Eva Diaz
Artforum
Summer 2012

“…Between this circuit of silences pregnant with sound and emptiness full of incident, the artists in “Notations” continually return to Cage by way of Rauschenberg. The exhibition’s spare, refined installation rewarded sharp attention and patience, as many works would be overlooked in nearly any other context. Matthew Deleget’s Monochrome (Sleeper Cells), 2007, consists of three reflective panels coated nearly to their edges with white paint the same color as the gallery walls. Such a work might elicit a shrug elsewhere (as no doubt many monochromes sometimes to), but the discursive field of “Cage/Rauschenberg” demands subtler perception. Deleget’s paintings amplify shadows, and their color and appearance vary according to light conditions. Additionally the roughly applied perimeter of paint appears like the slapdash coats thrown up to cover graffiti on city walls…”

Image:
Installation view of Notations: The Cage Effect Today, Hunter College Times Square Gallery, New York, NY, 2012
Left: Matthew Deleget, Right: Linda Stillman

Pratt Alumni Painters
Curated by Nick Battis, Director of Exhibitions
Pratt Manhattan Gallery
144 W. 14th Street, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10011
June 7 - July 28, 2012
Opening: Thursday, June 7, 7-9pm

Participating Artists:
Derrick Adams, Polina Barskaya, Trudy Benson, Matthew Deleget, Elaine Komorowski, Il Lee, Carrie Moyer, Lisa Sanditz, Kris Scheifele, Marc Van Cauwenbergh, Andrew Sendor, Russell Tyler, Takashi Usui, Blade Wynne

The work of Pratt Alumni has been displayed at many prominent museums, including The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum, as well as at museums and galleries internationally. This installment of the alumni exhibition series focuses on a small group of painters who graduated within the last three decades.

Image:
Matthew Deleget
They Don’t Love You Like I Love You, 2009
Silver monochromes, silver acrylic paint on 4 panels, hit with a hammer
16 x 60 inches overall, each panel 16 x 12 inches

Daily Blog Feature
Fashion156
Number 1
24 Old Royal Free Square
Liverpool Road
Islington
London
N1 0YH
England

Image:
Matthew Deleget
No If’s, No But’s, No Maybe’s, 2007
Three monochrome paintings (acrylic on panel), hit with a hammer
24 x 68 inches overall (24 x 18 inches each)
Private collection

Book Launch: FutureShock OneTwo: Internationale Neue Konkrete +
dr. julius | ap
Leberstrasse 60
10829 Berlin, Germany
Sunday, February 26, 2012, 3pm

The exhibition FutureShock OneTwo showcases two components: first, current trends in the advancement of the New Concrete and non-objective art; and second the potential of the philosophy behind this art to impact society. 31 participants from 10 countries and three continents each display a work of theirs that they feel looks ahead towards the future.

In the catalogue the works exhibited and statements of the artists themselves or texts from other authors chosen by the artists are included.

Editor: Matthias Seidel
Essay: Gunnar Klack

Artists: Hartmut Böhm [DE, Text Gregory Volk]; Ray Malone [GB]; Henriëtte van’t Hoog [NL]; Josef Linschinger [AT, Heidi Bierwisch]; Don Voisine [US]; Edgar Diehl [DE]; José Heerkens [NL]; Wolfgang Berndt [DE]; Burchard Vossmann [DE]; Riki Mijling [NL, Antoon Melissen]; David Rhodes [GB]; Gilbert Hsiao [US]; Daniel Göttin [CH]; Monika Brandmeier [DE]; Sabine Laidig [DE, Sibylle Badstübner-Gröger]; Anette Haas [DE, Thomas Brasch]; John Aslanidis [AU]; Wolfram Ullrich [DE, Ralf Christofori]; Károly Keserü [HU, Patrick Heide]; Jan Maarten Voskuil [NL]; Stephan Ehrenhofer [AT]; Carles Valverde [ES, Kim Behm]; Marco Grassi [IT]; Pierre Juillerat [CH, Matthias Bleyl]; Siegfried Kreitner [DE]; Guido Winkler [NL]; Michael Graeve [AU]; Giles Ryder [AU]; Matthew Deleget [US]; Maik Teriete [DE, Jan Künemund]; Tim Stapel [DE, jfk]

German/English, 80 pages, 36 images, 23 x 30.2 cm, brochure
ISBN 978-3-939855-28-6
SURFACE Book, Darmstadt, www.surface-book.de
dr. julius | ap [edition ROTE INSEL 00012]

Matthew Deleget
by Annie Wischmeyer
Notations: The Cage Effect Today
Published by Hunter College / Times Square Gallery, New York, NY, 2012

Cage’s use of systems and chance operations was a means by which he could divest his work of self-expression, preferring to let sounds be themselves, and ever fearful to have them bear the burden of carrying some meaning. Cage let go of the romantic notion of the artist’s hand: aesthetic decisions should have nothing to do with the artist.

Taking up his mantle, Matthew Deleget writes “I am decidedly unromantic…it is all a means to an end.” His approach to his work is straightforward — paint is used straight from the tube without any kind of emotional underpinning — and applied without any romantic posturing. Cleansed of any expressionistic content, his work turns into and investigation of reductive abstraction and its capacity as a vehicle for meaning — or lack of.

In Monochrome (Sleeper Cells) (2007), Deleget uses the same white paint of the gallery walls and a roller to paint over a trio of mirrored paper surfaces. Inspired by the slapdash over-painting of graffiti by landlords hasty to obliterate the illicit signatures of street artists, Deleget turns the gesture on himself. In an active of artistic self-effacement, or rather defacement, Deleget circumvents any attempt to read expressive content in the work. A coat of white paint denies the reflection of the mirrored surface save for the edges that peek from underneath serving only as a reminder of what is being rejected. The surface that had served as a mirror for both the artist and world is here rendered mute and impassive. Refusing to divulge any information, these paintings offer instead only a stoic silence. Or, in the words of Cage, “I have nothing to say and I’m saying it.”

Notations: The Cage Effect Today
Curated by Joachim Pissarro, Bibi Calderaro & Julio Grinblatt
Hunter College / Times Square Gallery
450 West 41st Street
New York, NY
February 17 - April 21, 2012
Opening: February 16, 6-8pm

Participating Artists:
William Anastasi, Soledad Arias, Celeste Boursier-Mougenot, Waltercio Caldas, Jose Damasceno, Hanne Darboven, Matthew Deleget, Liz Deschenes, Felipe Dulzaides, Leon Ferrari, Robert Filliou, Yukio Fujimoto, Nicolas Guagnini, Lynne Harlow, Douglas Huebler, Gareth James, David Lamelas, Reiner Leist, Jorge Macchi, Christian Marclay, Rivane Neuenschwander, Kaz Oshiro, Edgardo Rudnitzky, Fred Sandback, Frank Scheffer, Ushio Shinohara, Linda Stillman, Daniel Wurtzel

FutureShock OneTwo
dr. julius | ap
Leberstrasse 60
D-10829 Berlin
Germany
www.dr-julius.de
January 26 - March 17, 2012
Opening: Thursday, January 26, 7 pm
Hours: Thursday–Saturday, 3–7 pm & by appointment

For the first exhibition in 2012 dr julius | ap will present FutureShock OneTwo, a group show featuring a selection of international artists from three continents.

The exhibition will showcase two components: first, current trends in the advancement of non-objective art; and second the potential of the philosophy behind this art to impact society. Participants will each display a work of theirs that they feel looks ahead towards the future. An important goal of this exhibition is to have the artists join a general discussion on the future of non-objective art, such as its potential to influence one‘s perspective on life, especially in comparison with narrative forms of art. Moreover, it is to explore the relation of art and value: in times of a fundamental crisis in the monetary system, can money really be the adequate equivalent in which to trade art? Is the work of the artist actually not more than money can ever be?

The exhibition will run from January 26 through March 17, 2012 and show works by the following artists:

John Aslandis [AUS]
Wolfgang Berndt [DE]
Hartmut Böhm [DE]
Monika Brandmeier [DE]
Matthew Deleget [US]
Edgar Diehl [DE]
Stephan Ehrenhofer [AT]
Daniel Göttin [CH]
Michael Graeve [AUS]
Marco Grassi [IT]
Anette Haas [DE]
José Heerkens [NL]
Gilbert Hsiao [US]
Pierre Juillerat [CH]
Károly Keserü [HU]
Siegfried Kreitner [DE]
Sabine Laidig [DE]
Josef Linschinger [AT]
Ray Malone [GB]
Riki Mijling [NL]
David Rhodes [GB]
Giles Ryder [AUS]
Tim Stapel [DE]
Maik Teriete [DE]
Wolfram Ullrich [DE]
Carles Valverde [ES]
Henriëtte van’t Hoog [NL]
Don Voisine [US]
Jan Maarten Voskuil [NL]
Burchard Vossmann [DE]
Guido Winkler [NL]

A catalogue for this exhibition will be published at Suface books, Darmstadt. It will be presented to the public on February 26, 2012 at the gallery.

Image:
Matthew Deleget, Shuffle (for Jose “Cheo” Feliciano), 2010
Acrylic, fluorescent and metallic acrylic on MDF
18 x 18 inches / 46 x 46 cm

Abstraction to the Power of Infinity
American Abstract Artists
The Icebox / Crane Fine Arts
1400 N. American Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122
www.cranearts.com
www.americanabstractartists.org
November 3 - 27, 2011
Opening: Thursday, November 10, 6-9pm

American Abstract Artists presents Abstraction to the Power of Infinity, curated by Janet Kurnatowski. ABSTRACTION celebrates the perseverance of non-figurative and non-objective art, including the practitioners, pioneers and those currently working in the traditions of abstraction. This exhibition shows the recent work of 76 members of the American Abstract Artists (AAA), along with four guest exhibitors. The works exhibited span a variety of media including painting, sculpture, photography, installation, video, and digital computer art; vividly communicating with color, line, form and texture.

As one of the few artists’ organizations born of the Great Depression, the AAA was a pivotal force in the development and acceptance of abstract art in the US. The group’s continued vitality after 75 years is a testament to the power and reach of these non-objective art forms and points to an infinite future for abstraction…This exhibition is also a tribute to Will Barnet, an esteemed member of the AAA since 1954 and also the AAA’s first centenarian.

The artists included in the exhibition are:
Alice Adams, Steven Alexander, Eve Aschheim, Martin Ball, Will Barnet, Dennis Beach, Siri Berg, Emily Berger, Power Boothe, Susan Bonfils, Sharon Brant, Henry Brown, Marvin Brown, Kenneth Bushnell, James O. Clark, Mark Dagley, Matthew Deleget, Tom Doyle, Tom Evans, Gabriele Evertz, Kevin Finklea, Heidi Glück, Vito Giacalone, John Goodyear, Gail Gregg, James Gross, Lynne Harlow, Mara Held, Daniel G. Hill, Charles Hinman, Gilbert Hsiao, Phillis Ideal, Julian Jackson, Roger Jorgensen, James Juszczyk, Cecily Kahn, Steve Karlik, Marthe Keller, Victor Kord, Irene Lawrence, Mon Levinson, James Little, Jane Logemann, Vincent Longo, Katinka Mann, Nancy Manter, Stephen Maine, Rossana Martinez, David MacKenzie, Creighton Michael, Manfred Mohr, Judith Murray, Sharyn O’Mara, John Phillips, Corey Postiglione, Joan Webster Price, Raquel Rabinovich, Leo Rabkin, Ce Roser, Irene Rousseau, David Row, James Seawright, Edward Shalala, Babe Shapiro, Louis Silverstein, Robert Storr, Peter Stroud, Robert Swain, Richard Timperio, Clover Vail, Vera Vasek, Don Voisine, Merrill Wagner, Joan Waltemath, Stephen Westfall, Mark Williams, Jeanne Wilkinson, Thornton Willis, Kes Zapkus, Nola Zirin

Exhibition curator Janet Kurnatowsk is the owner and director of Janet Kurnatowski Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Since opening its doors in 2004, the gallery has maintained a strong focus on showing abstract art from emerging talent as well as mid-career and established artists. Special thanks to The Golden Rule Foundation for making this exhibition possible.

Image:
Thornton Willis (left), Matthew Deleget (right)
Photo: Steven Alexander

Gifting Abstraction
Curated by Mariángeles Soto-Díaz
SOHO20 Gallery
New York, NY
www.soho20gallery.com
October 4–29, 2011

Featuring works by Melanie Crader, Matthew Deleget, Anoka Faruqee, Michelle Grabner, Brent Hallard, John Hawke, Gilbert Hsiao, Pablo Manga, Thomas Martin, Leah Raintree, Claudia Sbrissa, Karen Schifano, Karen Schiff, Jessica Snow, Mariángeles Soto-Díaz, Robert Strati, Ann Tarantino

Gifting Abstraction establishes an intimate economy within Soho20Chelsea gallery in which abstract objects have not yet turned into objectified commodities. The gift economy paradigm recognizes that there is value outside market forces, and that the gift renders forces and riches of its own. One of the perplexing aspects of the gift is that while its effect cannot be quantified, its intention is generally palpable: at its best, the gift generates a sense of interconnectedness. In this exhibition, artists’ labor stretches beyond the works themselves, as connective lines are symbolically rendered through the gifting process onto a relational dimension.

Gifting Abstraction questions the idea that abstract works are inextricably bound to the marketplace and therefore to a larger discourse of individualism. Abstraction has been construed as standing in direct opposition to the “relational aesthetics” theorized by Nicolas Bourriaud: “It seems more pressing to invent possible relations with our neighbors in the present than to bet on happier tomorrows.” Bourriaud implicitly pits object-based art practices such as abstract painting – which he associates with the notion of (failed) utopias – against what he calls “microtopia,” a provisional, DIY, relational approach to art.

This exhibition dismantles these oppositions, bringing abstract objects into a shifting and relational process. The arrangement of abstract art works in the exhibit will change regularly over 20 days based on choices by the participating artists. Each artist gifts a piece and selects one from the exhibition to take at the end of the show. There will be a diagram notating each selection, and artists can rearrange the works after they select their gift. Each artist communicates with the previous and subsequent “gifting” artists, and with the other artists of the show through a blog designed for that purpose, in an exhibit where the relationships among the artists are of primary importance. Also inspired by Umberto Eco’s poetics of the “open work,” this exhibition changes with each gift, creating a new communicative situation through the abstract works themselves.

Gifting Abstraction, curated by Mariángeles Soto-Díaz, is part of Abstraction at Work, a series dedicated to rethinking abstraction’s functions through projects ranging from installations to curatorial experiments.

Alejandra von Hartz Gallery
Booth 182
arteBA Art Fair
Buenos Aires, Argentina
May 19-23, 2011

75th Anniversary: American Abstract Artists International
Deutscher Künstlerbund Projektraum & Galerie oqbo
Berlin, Germany
May 14 - June 18, 2011
Opening: Friday, May 13, 2011, 7:00 pm

The two-part exhibition, that will take place in both the Galerie oqbo and in the Projektraum at the Deutsche Künstlerbund, will present works from 75 American and German artists, and will offer an overview of different contemporary manifestations of abstract art. The works of the American Abstract Artists will be complemented by a selection of ten works each by the Galerie oqbo (from the Paperfile collection) and the Deutsche Künsterlbund.

Participating Artists:
Degenhard Andrulat, Kirstin Arndt, Martin Ball, Michael Bause, Siri Berg, Emily Berger, Christian Bilger, Susan Bonfils, Sharon Brant, Henry Brown, James O. Clark, Mark Dagley, Matthew Deleget, Ruth Eckstein, Frank Eltner, Gabriele Evertz, Andreas Exner, James Geccelli, Heidi Gluck, Thomas Grochowiak, James Gross, Lynne Harlow, Mara Held, Daniel G. Hill, Gilbert Hsiao, Ben Hübsch, Phillis Ideal, Julian Jackson, Michael Jäger, Susanne Jung, James Juszczyk, Cecily Kahn, Steve Karlik, Marthe Keller, Victor Kord, Irene Lawrence, Dirk Lebahn, Seraphina Lenz, Mon Levinson, Jane Logemann, Vincent Longo, David MacKenzie, Stephen Maine, Katinka Mann, Nancy Manter, Bertold Mathes, Rossana Martinez, Creighton Michael, Klaus Merkel, Manfred Mohr, Maria Morganti, Judith Murray, John Phillips, Lucio Pozzi, Leo Rabkin, David Rhodes, Ce Roser, Irene Rousseau, David Row, Jo Schöpfer, Edward Shalala, Anita Stöhr Weber, Richard Timperio, Clover Vail, Don Voisine, Merrill Wagner, Stephen Westfall, Jeanne Wilkinson, Mark Williams, Thornton Willis, Renate Wolff, Kes Zapkus, Julia Ziegler, Nola Zirin, David Reed

“Our purpose is to unite abstract artists residing in the United States, to bring before the public their individual works, and in every possible way foster public appreciation for this direction in painting and sculpture. We believe that a new art form has been established which is definite enough in character to demand this united effort. (From the preface to the 1938 catalogue of the American Abstract Artists’ second annual exhibition)

It was 1936, and the country was in the middle of the Great Depression. Though most public presentations of art were conservative, capturing the subdued tone of a nation under economic siege, the Museum of Modern Art mounted the first exhibition of cubist and abstract art—but neglected American artists working in this vein. Angry, many of these artists formed a support network, led by Carl Holty, Harry Holtzman, and George L. K. Morris, and they began to meet informally at the studio of Ibram Lassaw, discussing ways to change the perception of their work and to bring more attention to their ideas and ideals. One can imagine the energy, the vibrant talk, the vigorous camaraderie that developed during these evenings. And in 1937, this informal group exhibited together for the first time at the Squibb Gallery on 57th Street as the American Abstract Artists.

These were heady days, and the success of their first exhibition led to a growth in membership, more exhibitions, lectures, and catalogues. Many years later, one of the original members, Esphyr Slobodkina, remembered, “Critical opinion was about equally divided between scathing denunciations and benign curiosity.” Not discouraged, the group thrived though the critics remained hostile, culminating in 1940 when the group formed a picket line in front of the Museum of Modern Art, protesting the lack of recognition and respect by such institutions.

During World War II, European artists Piet Mondrian, Fernand Lèger, and László Moholy-Nagy emigrated to America and found a sympathetic community among the members of the AAA. Mondrian became a member of the group and was something of a spiritual mentor to many of them, along with Hans Hofmann, who never joined, but whose inspirational teaching spawned a new generation of like-minded artists. In the 1950s, the more robust abstraction of Mondrian was replaced by a quiet stillness, particularly evident in the work and writings of artists like Ad Reinhardt and Burgoyne Diller. While abstraction seemed to be moving in new directions, the longevity of the group itself can be attributed to its lack of dogma, rejection of any party line or adherence to any manifestoes, and a general open enthusiasm for abstract art in all its variations.

Despite changes within the membership as well as in the art world, the AAA has continued strong for seventy-five years, a testament to the nurture and care of these artists who strongly believe that the abstract impulse can happily encompass diverse approaches and identities, from the dynamic structural symmetry of Mondrian, to a biomorphic, surrealist-inspired abstraction, to the rigid, grid-like forms of neoplasticism. This exhibition celebrates this achievement.”

Text by Nancy E. Green, curator of Splendor of Dynamic Structure: Celebrating 75 Years of the American Abstract Artists, January 22–March 20, 2011, at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University.

Image:
American Abstract Artists’ First Exhibition
Squibb Gallery, NYC, 1937

Variety Trumps Argument at the Bronx River Art Center
By Stephen Maine
artcritical
April 23, 2011

“…Matthew Deleget’s work resides toward the other end of abstraction’s spectrum as the realization, on a painted surface, of a preconceived procedural idea. The colors in Shuffle (for Grandmaster Flash) (2011) are selected at random—yellow, pink, fluorescent orange and copper predominate—and arranged by means of a predetermined system of recombination within a four-by-four unit grid. Abstraction as perceptual research, Shuffle is an extreme instance of the empirical attitude that underlies much of the work in the show, which is alert to pictorial strategies rather than intent on fetishizing subjectivities…”

Image:
Installation view with works by Cordy Ryman, Matthew Deleget, EJ Hauser, Jered Sprecher, Tisch Abelow (l to r)

The Working Title at the Bronx River Art Center
By Andrew Russeth
16 Miles of String blog
April 7, 2011

“…A small square by Matt Deleget — titled Shuffle (for Grandmaster Flash), a tribute to the hip-hop legend who grew up in the surrounding community — contains far more punch than one would expect from a painting just 18 inches on each side. Filled with bright squares of pink, yellow, and orange, it holds up well against its sprightly neighbor, a Cordy Ryman put together with just a few wood blocks.

It’s a strange thing be in the neighborhood of Grandmaster Flash, just a few blocks from the late and legendary Fashion Moda, looking at contemporary art by artists whose work one usually sees in Chelsea, on the Lower East Side, or out in Brooklyn. Strange, but nice, with friends and acquaintances brought together en masse in a new context…”

Image (left to right):
Cordy Ryman, Vector, 2010
Enamel, shellac and epoxy on wood
36.25 x 33.5 inches

Matthew Deleget, Shuffle (for Grandmaster Flash), 2011
Acrylic, fluorescent and metallic acrylic on MDF
18 x 18 inches

Pared: Matthew Deleget and Ellen Nagel
U·turn Art Space
2159 Central Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45214
u.turn.artspace@gmail.com
April 2-30, 2011
Opening: Saturday, April 2, 7-10pm

For Pared, U·turn Art Space presents works by Matthew Deleget and Ellen Nagel that consider reduction as a maneuver in painting, sculpture throughout art history. Deleget presents a series of monochrome works on panel, along with a long-term and ongoing conceptual project based in the collection of artist catalogues that have been purchased at deeply discounted prices. Nagel has created a number of brand new sculptural installations for the exhibition. Together, Deleget’s and Nagel’s work continues a line of inquiry into reduction and restraint in which U·turn is persistently invested.

Deleget’s I Love You (2007) is comprised of solidly colored plastic shopping bags that have been mounted onto nine panels. I Love You was inspired by The Beatles song All Together Now (also, a humorous reference to collaboration). In the song, Paul McCartney sings the lines, “black, white, green, red — can I take my friend to bed? — pink, brown, yellow, orange, blue — I love you.” Deleget has quoted McCartney directly, with each of the nine panels corresponding to the mentioned colors and installed in the order found in the song. Deleget uses McCartney’s lyrics to connect his practice of abstraction to unexpected cultural points of reference.

Deleget also presents a collection of books as art objects. All of the books are about living abstract artists—his inspirations—and were purchased at major art museums in New York City at heavily discounted prices. While his works on panel bespeak to Deleget’s own love and commitment to abstract art, this project questions whether the artists and their ideas have been discounted with the prices of these books.

Ellen Nagel’s assemblage sculptures are experiments in elegant restraint. Nagel creates art experiences that occupy the same space as the viewer, at approximately the same scale of the viewer. The avatars she constructs bring together found objects from home life (clothing, shopping bags), the studio (paint, drawing boards) and the cleanly institutional (modular office furniture). While there may be any number of elements in each work, their overall effect is one of absolute subtlety. As freestanding, collaged objects, they call attention to their own physical features: rigidity and slackness, buoyancy and gravity, tension and repose. She balances seemingly incidental elements with formalist choices that are precise and considered. Around their edges, her works evoke myth and metaphor as monuments to the humble and the heroic. Ultimately, they evidence the culture(s) surrounding their making.

Artist Bios
Matthew Deleget is an abstract painter, curator, and writer. He has exhibited his work nationally and internationally, including solo and group exhibitions in Europe, Asia, and Australia. He is a member of American Abstract Artists, the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation’s Artist Advisory Committee, and the board of The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. Matthew has received awards from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, Brooklyn Arts Council, and The Golden Rule Foundation, and his work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Flash Art, Artnet Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Basler Zeitung, among others.

In 2003, Deleget founded MINUS SPACE (www.minusspace.com), a platform for reductive art on the international level based in Brooklyn, NY. MINUS SPACE’s web site is used by more than 800 people daily from 150 countries worldwide. Deleget has also organized more than two dozen solo and group exhibitions at both MINUS SPACE’s gallery in the Gowanus, Brooklyn, as well as other collaborating venues on the national and international levels. MINUS SPACE exhibitions have been reviewed in Art in America, Artnet Magazine, ArtNews, The Brooklyn Rail, Houston Public Radio, Huffington Post, The New Criterion, New York Magazine, NYFA Current, New York Sun, Time Out New York, and Village Voice, among others.

Deleget holds an MFA in Painting and an MS in Theory, Criticism and History of Art, Design and Architecture from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. He holds a BA in Art and German from Wabash College, Crawfordsville, IN. He lives with his wife, artist Rossana Martinez, and son in Brooklyn, NY.

Ellen Nagel is a Cincinnati native, where she continues to live and work. She received a BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 2010. Nagel appeared in U·turn Art Space’s first exhibition Brought To You By, and the gallery collective immediately sought a reprisal of Nagel’s work in a more ambitious installation. Nagel has previous participated in multiple exhibitions at the Art Academy’s Chidlaw Gallery. In 2010, she was one of several artists to create a site-specific installation in the Cincinnati Art Museum. Entitled Let Fall, the interactive work invited viewers to look behind heavy black curtains to experience a series of post-minimal painted shapes.

U·turn Art Space
U·turn Art Space is a collective-run alternative arts space that was initiated in fall 2009. The U·turn Art Space collective is comprised of five Cincinnati-based artists: Molly Donnermeyer, Matt Morris, Patricia Murphy, Zach Rawe and Eric Ruschman. With special interests in installation art and conceptual art practices, U·turn nonetheless exhibits artists with diverse aesthetics that are based in the Cincinnati region, as well as across the world, including (to date) Berlin, Germany; Chicago, IL; London, England; Miami, FL; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; and San Diego, CA. Its goal is to bring shows into Cincinnati that are relevant; that provide an opportunity for discourse, ideas, and play to be forced together, awkwardly or elegantly, and offer itself to a viewing audience. Along with art exhibitions, U·turn hosts a range of accompanying readings, performances and events that raise probing questions and plural perspectives. U·turn’s efforts are intended for audiences in the surrounding Brighton district, Cincinnati at large and the whole of the Midwest.

Regular gallery hours are on Saturdays, 12-4 pm, and by appointment.

Image:
Matthew Deleget
I Love You, 2007
Used plastic shopping bags in 9 colors mounted on 9 panels
Dimensions variable

The Working Title
Curated by Progress Report
Bronx River Art Center
305 East 140th Street, #1A
Bronx, NY 10454
www.bronxriverart.org
March 25 - April 29, 2011
Opens: Friday, March 25, 6-9pm

A 32-artist group survey of recent abstraction organized by Progress Report.

Participating Artists: Amy Feldman, Benjamin King, Britton Tolliver, Cordy Ryman, Dennis Hollingsworth, Douglas Melini, EJ Hauser, Eric Freeman, Gary Petersen, Halsey Hathaway, Ian Pedigo, Inna Babaeva, Ivin Ballen, Jasmine Justice, JD Walsh, Jered Sprecher, Joshua Abelow, Joy Curtis, Keltie Ferris, Kris Chatterson, Lauren Luloff, Letha Wilson, Matthew Deleget, Omar Chacon, Osamu Kobayashi, Pamela Jorden, Patrick Brennan, Stacy Fisher, Tamara Zahaykevich, Tisch Abelow, Vince Contarino, Yadir Quintana

The name of the exhibition refers to the changing classification, description, or title that is given to abstraction. By nature, abstraction resists tradition and categorization transforming itself into a highly visual moving target. These artists employ abstraction as a means to investigate different approaches to materials, systems, media and content. Rather than following a pre-established doctrine of romantic sentimentality, most of the works elicit an air of experimentation, familiarity, and an overall sense of purpose.

The Working Title brings together different perspectives on abstraction in conversation with each other. Minimalism, post-modern, geometric, gestural, formal, color filed, video and process-driven works occupying the same room, creating unpredictable relationships through contrasting approaches.

Having direct access to technology has become an important tool for artists to share and discuss their practice, making connections on a regional and global level. The collective stance and attitudes on making art are less defensive than they used to be, opening up conversations with the past by seeking out and elaborating on previous approaches that may have been marginalized or forgotten.

The Working Title is less about seizing the moment, but more of a selection of current voices that use abstraction as a starting point to create work that expands the trajectory of what is possible.

This exhibition was organized by Progress Report, a visually-driven project that offers a glimpse of the creative process that share various perspectives from the working artist’s point of view.

Matthew Deleget
Lost Painters Blog
By Niek
March 12, 2011

Index
Issue No. 1, September 2010
Melbourne, Australia
ISSN 1838-501X
Edition of 50

Participating Artists:
Justin Andrews, Andrew Barber, Stephen Bram, Lars Breuer, Sanne Bruggink, Christoph Dahlhausen, Matthew Deleget, Craig Easton, Anna Finlayson, Sebastian Freytag, Daniel Gottin, Jasper van der Graaf, Melinda Harper, Bianca Hester, Matt Hinkley, Clemens Hollerer, Kyle Jenkins, Gerard Kodde, Anne-Marie May, Guido Munch, John Nixon, Rose Nolan, Jan van der Ploeg, Kerrie Poliness, Sandra Selig, Gemma Smith, Masato Takasaka, David Thomas, Tilman, Peter Tyndall, Jan Maarten Voskuil, Thomas Wildner, Constanze Zikos

Image:
Publication cover

Matthew Deleget
Reductive Abstraction Art
By Cyril Foiret
Trendland
March 3, 2011

It All Comes Down to Nothing (for Victor Gonzalez), 2011
Black, gray and white spray paint on canvases and wall
Dimensions variable
Installation realized by Roland Orépük

Exhibitions:
Back to Basics, 1st International Festival of Non-Objective Art
Pont de Claix, France, 2011

A Slice of Splendor: Johnson Museum Showcases American Abstract Artists
by Wylie Schwartz
Ithaca Times
February 16, 2011

“…The spirit of the avant-garde, under which American abstract art came to exist, continues to manifest itself in much of the recent work on display. In Matthew Deleget’s War Monochromes (2007-11), six squares painted with fluorescent orange spray paint suggest the abstract potential for graffiti art; the radiant color spills off the canvas and onto the wall, evoking a recent trend in street art where abstract interventions rather than empirical messages or text open up exciting new realms of possibility…”

Image:
Matthew Deleget
War Monochromes, 2011
Fluorescent orange spray paint on canvases and wall
Dimensions variable

Back to Basics
1st International Festival of Non-Objective Art
Organized by Roland Orépük
Moulins de Villancourt
83 Cours Saint-Andre
38800 Pont de Claix
France
www.pontdeclaix.fr
February 14 - April 5, 2011
Opening: Tuesday, February 15, 6:30pm

Participating Artists:
Pam Aitken, Christoph Dahlhausen, Caroline de Lannoy, Matthew Deleget, Daniel Gottin, Billy Gruner, Brent Hallard, Clemens Hollerer, Andrew Huston, Sarah Keighery, Roland Orepuk, Charles Payan, Jacek Przybyszewski, Paul Raguenes, Giles Ryder, Sato Satoru, Karen Schifano, Bogumila Strojna, Tilman, Richard van der Aa, Jan van der Ploeg, Henriette van ‘t Hoog, Guido Winkler

Colour Light Time
Curated by David Thomas
Nellie Castan Gallery
12 River Street
South Yarra, Melbourne, 3141
Australia
www.nelliecastangallery.com
February 3-26, 2011
Opening: Thursday, February 3, 6-8pm

This project exhibits works by established international artists alongside works of a newer generation, including Joachim Bandau (GER), Lisa Benson (NZ), Christoph Dahlhausen (GER), Matthew Deleget (USA), Noel Ivanoff (NZ), Laresa Kosloff (AUS), William Mackrell (UK), Simon Morris (NZ), David Sequeira (AUS), David Thomas (AUS).

Image:
Installation view at Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne, Australia, 2011

Splendor of Dynamic Structure
Celebrating 75 Years of the American Abstract Artists
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
www.museum.cornell.edu
January 22 - March 20, 2011

The American Abstract Artists, formed in 1936, were drawn to Mondrian’s ideal of the “splendor of dynamic structure.” Despite many changes since then, the AAA has continued strong for seventy-five years, a testament to their belief that the abstract impulse can encompass diverse approaches and identities, influenced by surrealism, expressionism, and landscape painting. The historical portion of this exhibition is culled from the Johnson Museum’s permanent collection, supplemented by a curated selection of works chosen from among the current members of the AAA. The exhibition and catalogue were supported by the Wolf Kahn and Emily Mason Foundation and the Cornell Council for the Arts.

Image:
Installation view
Matthew Deleget
War Monochromes, 2011
Fluorescent orange spray paint on canvases and wall
Dimensions variable

Alumni Exhibition
Eric Dean Gallery
Randolph H. Deer Art Wing
Fine Arts Center
Wabash College
Crawfordsville, IN 47933
www.wabash.edu/academics/art
January 21 - February 18, 2011
Opening: Friday, January 21, 4:30-6pm

Image:
Matthew Deleget
No Man’s Land, 2008
Cadmium red light acrylic on panel, hit with a hammer
18 x 24 inches

Miami International Art Fair
Alejandra von Hartz Gallery Booth
Miami Beach Convention Center, Hall D
1901 Convention Center Drive
Miami Beach, FL 33139
www.mia-artfair.com
January 13-17, 2011

PANEL DISCUSSION
Geometric Abstraction in the Contemporary World: Young Artsist, Robust Markets, Important Collections
Sunday, January 16, 2011, 2:45-3:45pm

Participants:
Alejandra von Hartz, Owner and Director of Alejandra von Hartz Gallery
Matthew Deleget, Artist and Director of MINUS SPACE
Gene Moreno, Moderator

Image:
Alejandra von Hartz Gallery’s booth, including Matthew Deleget, Shuffle Painting, 2010

International Kids Fund Wonderfund Art Auction 2010
Villa 221
221 NE 17th Street
Miami, FL 33132
www.wonderfund.org
Wednesday, December 8, 2010, 7-10pm

International Kids Fund (IKF) is a philanthropic program of Jackson Memorial Foundation committed to helping critically ill children primarily from Latin America and the Caribbean gain immediate access to essential medical treatments that are unavailable in their respective home countries.

Thanks to the program, hundreds of foreign children with urgent health care needs have received expert attention from medical specialists at Holtz Children’s Hospital, located at University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center in Miami, Florida, United States.

IKF successfully raises funds and administers proactive assistance by having an efficient organizational and financial infrastructure in place to quickly respond to specific requests for help. Simply stated, IKF is in the business of saving young people’s lives.

Image:
Matthew Deleget
Shuffle (for Celia Cruz), 2010
Acrylic and fluorescent acrylic on MDF
18 x 18 inches
Courtesy of the artist & Alejandra von Hartz Gallery, Miami

Informal Relations: Contemporary Works on Paper
Curated by Scott Grow
Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art
1043 Virginia Avenue, Suite 5
Indianapolis, IN 46203
www.indymoca.org
December 3, 2010 – January 15, 2011
Opening: December 3, 6-11pm
Gallery Hours: Thursday–Saturday 11am – 6pm

Curator Scott Grow selects 32 artists from the United States, Germany, Spain and Japan to focus on the diversity of practices within painting and abstraction today.

The exhibition’s title refers to kind the “informal relations” artists have with one another, their predecessors, with the modernist tradition, the future, and even with their own work. While works on paper may stand as finished works, they are also often places for exploration, thinking, planning, taking chances, and failure. The show explores the challenges of abstract art. Since it typically refuses expected representation, language and absolute interpretation, it requires the viewer’s engagement and participation. Abstraction is not a singular school or style, the term itself is not necessarily helpful in identifying the qualities or concepts of the art object. Abstract artists often have shared and conflicting objectives for the art they make.

In response to these challenges with their genre of art, each artist in Informal Relations presents a definition of abstract painting. The exhibition explores the similarities, differences, and connections between these artists, their dialog with abstraction’s history, and various directions forward for abstraction.

Participating artists include: Patrick Alt, Chris Ashley, Patrick Berran, Kadar Brock, Matthew Deleget, Laura Fayer, Keltie Ferris, Patrick Michael Fitzgerald, Connie Goldman, Brent Hallard, Rachel Hayes, Jeffrey Cortland Jones, Michael Just, Matthew Langley, Jim Lee, Rossana Martinez, Rob Nadeau, Melissa Oresky, Paul Pagk, Danielle Riede, Maximilian Rödel, Eric Sall, Susan Scott, Gabriel J. Shuldiner, Jessica Snow, Henning Straßburger, Garth Weiser, Wendy White, Paige Williams, Douglas Witmer, Molly Zuckerman-Hartung and John Zurier.

Image:
Matthew Deleget
White Supremacist Composition, 2007
White monochrome, framed sheet of white foam stickers with Christian symbols
including crucifixes, Jesus fish, angels, hearts (readymade, purchased at Christian novelty store)
16 x 14 inches framed

SOAPBOX II: Second Annual Art Auction
Collette Blanchard Gallery
26 Clinton Street
New York, NY 10002

October 27, 2010, 6-9 pm

An exciting evening including music with DJ Khary, drinks, hors d’oeuvres, and, most of all, art! Tickets start at $25.

Still Falling Hard for Art in Miami
by Elisa Turner
Art Centric
October 10, 2010

“…Eric and I made our way on to David Castillo Gallery, where I was so glad to catch Pepe Mar’s show, with its own lavishly-colored mini jungles of sculpture, and then it was up the street to Alejandra von Hartz Gallery, where I was simply dazzled by the very fab color combinations in the show “Color Climate: Matthew Deleget / David E. Peterson.” Alexandra explained to me how Deleget takes inspiration from the salsa musicians Fania All-Stars, and that each painting pays hommage to a specific musician. Since I was in a birthday party mood, I loved learning about this info…”

Image:
Installation view of Shuffle Paintings at Alejandra von Hartz Gallery, Miami, FL, 2010

Conversations with Robert Swain
Directed and edited by Peter Canale
Stocan Films, 2010

A 5-part online film series covering the life and work of NYC artist Robert Swain. Interview by Matthew Deleget, artist and founder of MINUS SPACE. Produced to accompany the exhibition Visual Sensations: The Paintings of Robert Swain: 1967 – 2010 at Hunter College/Times Square Gallery in New York, NY, from October 7 – November 13, 2010.

Part 1: New York & The Early Years
Part 2: Color System
Part 3: The Grid: Harmony & Contrast
Part 4: Technology & Process
Part 5: The Brushstroke & Beyond

Ten Artists Look at Monochromes Now
by John Hurrell
EyeContact
September 22, 2010

“…The projected DVD by David Sequeira shows two identical twins (or perhaps the artist in duplicate?) shaking hands while wearing superimposed monochromatic coloured shirts. The flickering optical bombardment of saturated colour is drolly amusing as an unstable foil to the enactment of a legal agreement, and this affability is a beautiful contrast to the violence of Matthew Deleget’s six panels positioned nearby. They are painted fluorescent yellow, and three have had their centres smashed out with a hammer.

Deleget’s action implies an antagonism to monochromes, if not a hostility to art in general, or perhaps the paint application of his own examples? He might be providing a gesture that is calculatedly open to any kind of interpretation, or he may simply be enraged by any implication of transcendental symbolism, or the hue yellow itself…”

Easy Show
Kamer Laakkwartier
The Hague
The Netherlands
web site
Thursday, September 16, 2010, 8pm

Participating Artists:
Elizabeth de Vaal, Ellen Rodenberg, Maarten Schepers, Jeroen Bosch, Hans Ensink op Kemna, Clary Stolte, Peter Luining, Jan van der Ploeg, Erik-Jan Ligtvoet, Stefanie Scholte, Arianne Olthaar, Roman Wolgin, Kees Koomen, Maarten Janssen, Nelleke Scharroo, Susanne Bruynzeel, Ton Schuttelaar, Loes Aarts, Machiel van Soest, Matthew Deleget, Mark Brogan, Niels Post, Rob Knijn, Quentin Armand, Jack Segbars, Yvonne Lacet, Mark de Weijer, Yvo van der Vat, Thom Vink, Thomas Bakker, Peter Cleutjens, Isa Tenhaeff, Harold de Bree, Carla Klein, Roeland Langendoen, Dit is dit, Marike Schuurman, Barney de Krijger, GJ de Rook, Johan Gustavsson

Image:
Matthew Deleget
Cyanide Suicide, 2010
Fluorescent yellow spray paint on canvas and wall
Created by artist Machiel van Soest
Private collection, The Netherlands

Cytoarchitecture
Techno Park Studios
15 Techno Park Drive
Williamstown 3016 Melbourne
Australia
www.technoparkstudios.com
September 4-19, 2010
Opening: Saturday, September 4, 4-6pm
Live Performance by Riki-Metisse Marlow at 5pm

Cytoarchitecture brings together six artists whose diverse practices are loosely threaded together by a number of intersecting concerns. These interests include abstraction, a reductive aesthetic and correlations between biological and constructed forms. The exhibition will include installation, live-feed video, automated sound sculptures, wall-drawings and modified found objects.

Matthew Deleget is a New York-based non-objective artist and curator who runs MINUS SPACE in Brooklyn. Melanie Irwin, who has shown both nationally and in Europe, utilizes sculpture, photography, video and performance. Most recently her work was seen at Blindside in Melbourne and at the John Fries Memorial Prize in Sydney where she was awarded second prize. Liang Xia Luscombe is an artist and writer and is currently Writer-in-Residence at Canberra Contemporary Art Space. Taree Mackenzie’s video works have been shown nationally and most recently she featured in Achromatism - Recent Video Work from the ACT, at the Queensland Centre for Photography. Riki-Metisse Marlow’s practice crosses automated sound-sculpture and performance with her work being seen most recently at the Format Festival, as part of Adelaide Fringe Festival. Kent Wilson is an artist, curator and writer whose sculptural sound works were most recently seen at Seventh Gallery, Melbourne.

Exhibition facilitated by Melanie Irwin and Taree Mackenzie.

Image:
Installation view with works by Matthew Deleget & Riki-Metisse Marlow (left to right)

Colour Light Time
Curated by David Thomas
Two Rooms
16 Putiki Street
Newton 1145 Auckland
New Zealand
www.tworooms.org.nz
September 9 - October 9, 2010
Private view: Thursday, September 9, 6-8pm

Colour and light are capable of generating diverse culturally loaded readings as well as strong physical sensations. Their readings are complex, interpreted as physical phenomena (sensation) and symbolic codes (knowledge).

The exhibition grows out of an interest in the tradition and diverse readings of the MONOCHROME via painting to include: constructions, interventions, photography, moving-image and installation by New Zealand and international artists. BUT rather than interpreting the MONOCHROME as a traditional formalist model, the exhibition brings the MONOCHROME into the C21where it is employed as a device to manifest an awareness of colour, light, movement and time AMID THE WORLD in order to help us see our experiencing of our world.

The artworks in this exhibition celebrate complexity, transience, and the contingent nature of being. They offer us a range of approaches whilst engaging us with experiencing, perceiving, understanding, reading and feeling and ask us to consider how these processes unfold and develop over time.

This project exhibits works by established international artists alongside works of a newer generation.

THE ARTISTS include:
Joachim Bandau (GER), Lisa Benson (NZ), Christoph Dahlhausen (GER), Matthew Deleget (USA), Noel Ivanoff (NZ), Laresa Kosloff (AUS), William Mackrell (UK), Simon Morris (NZ), David Sequeira (AUS), David Thomas (AUS).

The contemplative layered watercolours of Joachim Bandau (GER), manifest movement and time.

Lisa Benson (NZ) photographic drawings emphasizes time through the recording of changing light in the tradition of concrete photography.

The glass and vinyl film works of Christoph Dahlhausen (GER), are informed by Non Objective and phenomenological explorations of light and colour, placed in situ that play with reflection, light and colour

Noel Ivanoff (NZ). His work manifests time and duration through a sensitive material awareness of gesture, structure and fabrication.

Matthew Deleget (USA) produces paintings/ installations that exploit the monochrome tradition via specific use of encoded colour and exaggerated gesture to address political and psychological content.

The video works of Laresa Kosloff (AUS) use colour, timing to combine the tropes of sport and modernism to create works of contemplation and humour.

William Mackrell (UK). His photos and his use of cones of light to pictorialise space with ordinary materials in a manner that enables us become aware of our changing experience of space, light in time .

The durational paintings of Simon Morris (NZ) manifest time through their use of colour, process and materiality to generate an awareness of movement of time and space.

David Sequeira (AUS). His long study of the colour in paintings and installations has been translated into a new body of photographic and video works manifesting time and change, in an affectionate and playful manner.

The photopaintings and paintings of David Thomas (AUS) use the monochrome as a vehicle/interval in assisting us to recognise what surrounds it where it is placed amid the world.

Shuffle Paintings (Fania All Stars), 2010
Acrylic, fluorescent & metallic acrylic on mdf
Colors are chosen at random, wall color also chosen at random
18 x 18 inches

Exhibitions:
Color Climate: Matthew Deleget & David E. Peterson
Alejandra von Hartz Gallery, Miami, FL, 2010
September 11 – October 30, 2010

This is a new suite of paintings informed by the “shuffle” feature on my iPod. Each painting consists of a checkered grid of four colors completely selected at random. The gallery walls are also painted various colors selected at random. This specific series of paintings, made of acrylic paint, including fluorescent, metallic, and iridescent colors, on thin archival masonite panels, is directly inspired by the legendary salsa ensemble Fania All Stars. Each painting will pay homage to a specific musician in the group, including Johnny Pacheco, Hector Lavoe, Celia Cruz, Ray Barretto, and Larry Harlow, among others.

Known and Unknown Knowns and Unknowns, 2010
Fluorescent yellow acrylic on six panels, three hit with a hammer
20 inches high x 116.5 inches wide overall, each panel 20 x 16 inches

Exhibitions:
Colour Light Time
Curated by David Thomas
Two Rooms, Auckland, New Zealand, 2010

Colour Light Time
Curated by David Thomas
Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne, Australia, 2011

This work was informed by an infamous quote by former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on February 12, 2002. Rumsfeld’s statement concerned the absence of evidence linking the Iraqi government with the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups.

“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know we don’t know.”

His statement was widely criticized as an abuse of language, but also defended as reflecting a profound, almost philosophical truth. I deliberately used fluorescent yellow for this work, which to me is the visual equivalent of highly abstract thought.

Color Climate: Matthew Deleget / David E. Peterson
Alejandra von Hartz Gallery
2630 NW 2nd Avenue
Miami, FL 33127
Wynwood Art District
www.alejandravonhartz.net
September 11 – October 30, 2010
Opening: Saturday, September 11, 7-10pm

Alejandra von Hartz Gallery is pleased to announce the two-person exhibition Color Climate: Matthew Deleget / David E. Peterson. The exhibition will feature new abstract painting installations by Brooklyn artist Matthew Deleget and Atlanta artist David E. Peterson. Color Climate will be the artists’ first exhibition with the gallery and it will take place from September 11 to October 30, 2010, with an opening reception on Saturday, September 11, from 7-10 pm.

Matthew Deleget is a conceptual, reductive painter who will present an installation of new Shuffle paintings. Informed by the “shuffle” feature on his iPod, each painting consists of a checkered grid of four colors completely selected at random, producing visual results that vary widely. The gallery walls where his paintings are to be installed will also be painted various colors selected at random. This specific series of paintings, made of acrylic paint, including fluorescent, metallic, and iridescent colors, on thin archival masonite panels, is directly inspired by the legendary salsa ensemble Fania All-Stars. Each painting will pay homage to a specific musician in the group, including Johnny Pacheco, Hector Lavoe, Celia Cruz, Ray Barretto, and Larry Harlow, among others.

David E. Peterson makes rule-based paintings that are informed by high-end industrial design goods, including laptop computers, athletic shoes, men’s fashion, and Modern architecture. For Color Climate, David will present three new suites of paintings from his ongoing Product Abstraction series. The paintings present his investigation into the formal qualities and associated consumer aspirations of three specific lines of designer goods, including Nixon’s Newton watch collection, Asics’ Onitsuka Tiger line of sneakers, and wallets designed by Paul Smith. The individual paintings, made from acrylic and UV resin on MDF and produced in finite series, similar to the design goods themselves, will be installed in large grid formations on the gallery walls.

Matthew Deleget
Matthew Deleget (b. 1972) has exhibited his work nationally and internationally, including solo and group exhibitions in Europe, Asia, and Australia. He is a member of American Abstract Artists and has received awards from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, Brooklyn Arts Council, and The Golden Rule Foundation. His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Flash Art, Artnet Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Basler Zeitung, among others. In 2003, Matthew founded MINUS SPACE (www.minusspace.com), a platform for reductive art on the international level based in Brooklyn, NY. He has curated more than two dozen solo and group exhibitions at both MINUS SPACE, as well as other collaborating venues on the national and international levels. Matthew holds an MFA in Painting and an MS in Theory, Criticism and History of Art, Design and Architecture from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. He lives and works in Brooklyn,NY.

David E. Peterson
David E. Peterson (b. 1979) is an abstract painter who has exhibited his work throughout the United States and Europe. His work is included in the collections of the New Museum of Contemporary Art (Detroit), Progressive Art Collection, Home Depot, and Related Group, among many others. His work has been profiled on Forbes.com, Loft Magazine, Southern Living, CNN, and Detroit Free Press. David holds a BFA from the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit, MI, and is currently pursuing his MFA at Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA. He lives and works in Atlanta, GA.

Alejandra von Hartz Gallery
Founded in 2002, Alejandra von Hartz Gallery’s mission is to exhibit, promote, and sell Contemporary Art by emerging and established artists with an emphasis on Latin American Art, Geometric Abstraction, Minimalism, and Conceptual Art. Our goal is to represent the similarities and differences that co-exist in the diverse continent that is Latin America and its relationship, and mutual exchange with globalized contemporary art. We also want to be a catalyst and platform for Latin American art on the international level. The gallery has participated in art fairs worldwide and works by gallery artists have been acquired by leading collections and institutions.

Image:
Matthew Deleget, Shuffle (for Jose “Cheo” Feliciano), 2010
Acrylic, metallic and fluorescent acrylic on mdf, 18 x 18 inches

Unknown Unknowns, 2010
Archival inkjet print on paper
25 x 25 cm
Edition of 75, plus 8 artist proofs
Included in 25 - 25 IS Box, a limited-edition print portfolio with 25 international artists
Published by IS Projects, Leiden, The Netherlands

Participating artists include:
Justin Andrews, Linda Arts, Chris Ashley, Sanne Bruggink, Christoph Dahlhausen, Matthew Deleget, Rene Eicke, Billy Gruner, Brent Hallard, Jose Heerkens, Gilbert Hsiao, Arjan Janssen, Sarah Keighery, Alexandra Roozen, Leopoldine Roux, Giles Ryder, Clary Stolte, John Tallman, Tilman, Richard Van Der Aa, Iemke Van Dijk, Jasper Van Der Graaf, Henriette Van ‘t Hoog, Jan Maarten Voskuil and Guido Winkler.

Exhibition:
25 - 25 IS Box
Sydney Non Objective, Sydney, Australia, August 7-29, 2010

25 - 25 IS Box
Sydney Non Objective
Sydney, Australia
August 7-29, 2010

Published in 2010 by IS Projects in Leiden, The Netherlands, 25 - 25 IS Box is a new limited-edition print print portfolio by 25 international artists. Works are sized 25 x25 cm and the edition consists of 75 boxes. Participating artists include: Justin Andrews, Linda Arts, Chris Ashley, Sanne Bruggink, Christoph Dahlhausen, Matthew Deleget, Rene Eicke, Billy Gruner, Brent Hallard, Jose Heerkens, Gilbert Hsiao, Arjan Janssen, Sarah Keighery, Alexandra Roozen, Leopoldine Roux, Giles Ryder, Clary Stolte, John Tallman, Tilman, Richard Van Der Aa, Iemke Van Dijk, Jasper Van Der Graaf, Henriette Van ‘t Hoog, Jan Maarten Voskuil and Guido Winkler.

Image:
Works from the 25 – 25 IS Box on the floor at SNO.
(l to r, t to b) Tilman, Tallman, Heerkens, Hallard, Hsiao, Arts, Voskuil, Winkler, Andrews, Roux, Dahlhausen, Van Der Graaf, Deleget, Van Der Aa

Supporting Individual Artists
with Matthew Deleget

July 1, 2010, 6:30-8:30pm

Arts Administration Program
New York University
15 Barclay Street
New York, NY
www.nyu.edu

Images: NYU downtown

Public Art Project Web Sites
with Matthew Deleget

June 30, 2010, 6:30-8:30pm

The Laundromat Project
220A E. 4th Street
New York, NY
www.laundromatproject.org

Image: NYC laundromat

Artists’ Website Review
with Matthew Deleget

Thursday, June 17, 6-8pm

Lower East Side Printshop
306 W. 37th Street, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10018

Image: Printing presses at LESP

American Abstract Artists International
The Aragonese Castle of Otranto
Otranto, Italy
June 18-28, 2010

60 years ago an American Abstract Artists exhibition traveled to Europe and included stops in Rome and Munich. In June 2010, American Abstract Artists exhibited in American Abstract Artists International “L’astrazione vista da un cosmopolita” at the Aragonese Castle of Otranto in Otranto, Italy.

The exhibition included work by 50 AAA members and guest exhibitors from Italy. A brochure accompanied the exhibition, with an essay by Lucio Pozzi in three languages. The show was sponsored by BAU Institute and the Aragonese Castle of Otranto. The Aragonese Castle of Otranto is a member of Sistema Museo, a National Museum System in Italy.

Otranto is located on the Adriatic Sea, at the eastern-most point of the Salento peninsula, in the southeastern region of Puglia.

Image:
Installation view with my Ghost Painting (2007) above the door.

Panel discussion with Heather Darcy Bhandari (Mixed Greens) & Matthew Deleget

Friday, June 11, 2010, 2-4pm

A conversation with the Joan Mitchell Foundation’s 2009 MFA Grant Program recipients about the commercial gallery system.

Image:
Kris Scheifele, Primary Contortion
Acrylic paint, 37 x 21 x 21 inches
www.krisscheifele.com

Panel Discussion with Daniel G. Hill & Jim Osman, Melville House Curator
Moderated by Matthew Deleget

Wednesday, June 9, 2010, 7pm
Melville House Publishing
145 Plymouth Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
www.mhpbooks.com

Print is an exhibition of Daniel Hill’s recent digital prints that use photography, painting and printmaking to investigate surface and light and their role in the formation of images. The work is a meditation on the nature and meaning of the digital print in the context of the perplexing network of abstraction, illusion and representation.

Daniel Hill has been exhibiting in New York City for over 30 years. His work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions. He has been the recipient of a fellowship in painting from the National Endowment for the Arts and a project studio residency at Painting Space 122 here in New York. He is a member of American Abstract Artists and is an Assistant Professor at Parsons The New School for Design.

Image: Panel discussion

They Don’t Love You, Like I Love You, 2009
Headlines & Deadlines
NYFA Current
New York Foundation for the Arts
May 2010

The Engine Room
Massey University
East End Block 1
Wallace Street
Wellington, New Zealand
April 22 - May 8, 2010

Image: War Monochromes installation view

Escape from New York
Curated by Matthew Deleget
The Engine Room
Massey University
East End Block 1
Wallace Street
Wellington, New Zealand
April 22 - May 8, 2010
Floor Talk: Wednesday, April 21, 12noon
Opening: Wednesday, April 21, 5:30pm

A group exhibition surveying reductive strategies by 29 artists living in and around New York City. Each artist presented a single work, as well as an open letter to the local artist community.

Image: Exhibition invitation

Panel Discussion:
Abstract Art, A Living Legacy

Watch on YouTube
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9

Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Reception 6-7pm, Program 7-8pm

Newark Museum
Billy Johnson Auditorium
49 Washington Street
Newark, NJ 07102
www.newarkmuseum.org

Matthew Deleget will moderate a discussion with an international group of contemporary artists including Lenora de Barros, Paul Henry Ramirez and Don Voisine. The artists will talk about the legacy of constructivist abstract art as it relates to their work and explore why abstraction continues to be a vital mode of expression.

This panel discussion is presented in honor of Elizabeth Brady Richards.

Matthew Deleget is an abstract artist, curator and writer. He is the director of MINUS SPACE, a gallery and web site project devoted to reductive art in Brooklyn, New York.

Lenora de Barros is a poet and visual artist based in São Paulo, Brazil, whose work includes video, poetic performance, photography and sound installation. Having exhibited throughout Brazil and abroad, she is interested in exploring the abstract visual, aural and material signs of language.

Paul Henry Ramirez is a US artist noted for his signature style of fleshy and pop-inspired abstraction. BLACKOUT: A Centennial Commission by Paul Henry Ramirez is a site-specific installation in which he has transformed the Newark Museum’s Charles Engelhard Court with abstract, biomorphic forms and playful, bold color.

Don Voisine is an abstract painter based in Brooklyn, New York. President of the New York-based American Abstract Artists group that was founded in 1936, he works with a visual vocabulary of pared-down geometric form to explore the possibilities of visual space within abstraction.

RELATED EXHIBITIONS
On view through 05.23.2010

Constructive Spirit
Abstract Art in South and North America, 1920s - 50s

Constructive Spirit investigates the formative geometric abstract art movements of Argentina, Brazil, the United States, Uruguay and Venezuela. This exhibition is the first to explore the conceptual connections and exchanges that existed between abstract artists from South and North America. Featured are more than 90 paintings, sculptures, prints, photographs, drawings and films drawn from the collection of the Newark Museum, along with loans from public and private collections and galleries across both continents. Artists include Alexander Calder, Joaquín Torres-García, Alejandro Otero, Gyula Kosice, Lygia Clark, Ellsworth Kelly, Geraldo de Barros and many others.

BLACKOUT
A Centennial Commission by Paul Henry Ramirez

BLACKOUT: A Centennial Commission by Paul Henry Ramirez is a site-specific installation that allows viewers to experience painting as an environment that one can enter. Using the Newark Museum’s Charles Engelhard Court as his canvas, Ramirez employs his signature curvaceous biomorphic forms amidst a profusion of pop-inspired colors in dialogue with the Court’s distinctive Beaux-Arts architecture. BLACKOUT is the fourth and final commissioned project initiated to celebrate the Museum’s Centennial year.

Image:
Paul Henry Ramirez, BLACKOUT (installation view), 2010
Mural, paintings, relief, furniture & lighting
A Centennial Commission, Newark Museum, NJ
Photograph by Raymond Adams

Brainstorm! 2010 Workshop Series:
Selling Work Online
March 18, 2010, 6:30pm
Asian American Arts Alliance
20 Jay Street, Suite 740
Brooklyn, NY 11201

The Asian American Arts Alliance presents Brainstorm!, a new series of lively workshops with ideas and tools for artists to generate earned revenue. Produced in collaboration with New York Foundation for the Arts and Queens Council on the Arts.

Come hear lead speaker Chanel Kennebrew, artist and founder of www.junkprints.com talk in detail about how she successfully sells her work online, as well as the perspectives of artists Anowar Hossain, Hidemi Takagi and Matthew Deleget. Learn from peers, add your voice to a lively conversation, be inspired and come away with concrete tools for moving forward with online sales.

artistsFOR: Haiti Benefit Auction
Envoy Enterprises
131 Chrystie Street
New York, NY 10022
Wednesday, February 17, 2010, 6-10pm

Organized by Gabriel J. Schuldiner, a collaborative art auction dedicated to helping the people of Haiti.

UPDATE (Friday, February 19, 2010): Delighted to announce that Wednesday night’s auction helped raise over $5,000 in support of Doctors Without Border and Haiti relief efforts.  Wow!  And congratulations to everyone involved.

Thanks too to Barry Hoggard and James Wagner for my purchasing my work, Ghost Painting (2007), in support of a great cause. Delighted to be included in your collection: Hoggard Wagner Art Collection.

Objectified
Curated by David C. Terry & Matthew Deleget
Pelham Art Center
Pelham, New York
February 5 – April 17, 2010

An exhibition of new sculpture by artists David Baskin, Suzanne Broughel, Virginia Griswold, Kent Laforme, Sylvan Lionni, Jaye Moon and Claire Watson.

Image: Work by David Baskin

Paper! Awesome!
Curated by Brion Nuda Rosch
Baer Ridgway Exhibitions
172 Minna Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
February 20 - March 27, 2010
Opening: Saturday, February 20, 4-7pm

Objectified
Curated by David C. Terry & Matthew Deleget

Pelham Art Center
Pelham, New York
February 5 – April 17, 2010

An exhibition of new sculpture by artists David Baskin, Suzanne Broughel, Virginia Griswold, Kent Laforme, Sylvan Lionni, Jaye Moon and Claire Watson.

Mostly Monochrome
McKenzie Fine Art
511 W. 25th Street
New York, NY
January 7 - February 6, 2010

Participating Artists:
Matthew Deleget, Berndt Friberg, Karen Gunderson, James Lecce, Daniel Levine, David Mann, Palshus, Ursula Morley Price, Bill Thompson, Li Trincere, Peter Weber & Carrie Yamaoka

Image: Matthew Deleget, They Don’t Love You, Like I Love You, 2009
Silver monochromes, iridescent silver acrylic paint on 4 panels, hit with a hammer
16 x 60 inches overall, each panel 16 x 12 inches

Space Is the Place
A look back at the year in alternative art spaces and exhibitions
By Matt Morris
CityBeat
Cincinnati, Ohio
December 30, 2009

“Cincinnati’s vibrant community of alternative-exhibition spaces is my first love in this area. I am boastful of the innovations I witness in these unlikely places, where I not only exhibit my own installations but also, in several cases, help organize and curate exhibitions. I also write as an art critic for CityBeat and other publications, though I gracefully avoid reviewing my own endeavors, of course…

For me personally, as an artist, it has been a rewarding year. I have not only had the opportunity to exhibit in well-loved venues like Aisle Gallery but also been able to show — and come to know — less likely exhibition spaces, such as the stone staircase at Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church or the Campbell County Library…

Overall, these are what I found to be my the most moving alternative- and contemporary-art experiences in Cincinnati this year:

• Touch Faith at semantics (Nov. 7-28). Guest curator Jeffrey Cortland Jones brought together an accomplished set of artists from around the country to look at current practices in abstraction and painting. I will never forget the subtle and deeply moving monochrome “On the Back of a Hurricane (for Rudolf de Crignis),” [by Matthew Deleget] a simple blue rectangle that employed a plastic shopping bag for its color and texture…”

Image:
Matthew Deleget, On the Back of a Hurricane (for Rudolf de Crignis), 2008
Blue monochrome, blue plastic shopping bag mounted on panel
12 x 12 inches

Seven Artists of the Week
Chicago Art Review
December 30, 2009

Image: Matthew Deleget, War Monochromes (Blood & Treasure), 2009
Red and gold enamal spray paint on two canvases and wall
20 x 16 inches each

They Don’t Love You Like I Love You, 2009
Silver monochromes, silver acrylic paint on 4 panels, hit with a hammer
16 x 60 inches overall, each panel 16 x 12 inches

Exhibition:
Mostly Monochrome
McKenzie Fine Art, New York, NY, 2010

Pratt Alumni Painters
Curated by Nick Battis, Director of Exhibitions
Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York, NY, 2012

1/1 …… 1/100
Editions from Germany, The Netherlands & Switzerland
Curated by Susannah Creemer-Bermbach
Gesellschaft für Kunst und Gestaltung
Hochstadenring 22
Bonn, Germany
December 5, 2009 - January 24, 2010

Party at Chris’s House
Curated by Phong Bui
Janet Kurnatowski Gallery
205 Norman Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11222
November 20 - December 20, 2009

Image: Janet Kurnatowski & Phong Bui

Touch of Faith
Curated by Jeffrey Cortland Jones
Semantics Gallery
1107 Harrison Avenue
Cincinnati, OH, 45214
November 7-28, 2009
Opening: November 7, 7-11pm

Participating Artists:
Chris Ashley, Ron Buffington, Matthew Deleget, Hamlett Dobbins, Scott Grow, Harold Hollingsworth, Chris Jackson, J.T. Kirkland, Kim Krause, Matthew Langley, Lori Larusso, Rossana Martinez, Tim McFarlane, Matthew Miller-Novak, William Potter, Joe Saunders, Susan Scott, John Tallman, Douglas Witmer, Michael Wille, Paige Williams & Joel Whitaker

Image:
Matthew Deleget, On the Back of a Hurricane (for Rudolf de Crignis), 2008
Blue monochrome, blue plastic shopping bag mounted on panel
12 x 12 inches

Partners in Art and Life
Curated by Lynn Saville
Brooklyn Public Library
Central Library
10 Grand Army Plaza
Brooklyn, NY 11238
September 15 - November 5, 2009
Central Library, Grand Lobby (branch info)

Participating Artists:
Lauren Bakoian, Mildred Beltre, Claudine Brown, Larry Brown, Beth Caspar, Matthew Deleget, Scott Dolan, Jeffrey Dreiblatt, Bruce Gagnier, Kate Gardner, Nicholas Hamilton, Marcia Hillis, Julian Jackson, Jodie Vicenta Jacobson, Robert James, David Jelinek, Tatiana Kronberg, Tine Lundsfryd, Rene Lynch, Stephen Maine, Rossana Martinez, David Melrose, Carol Morrison, Don Muchow, Margaret Neill, Gelah Penn, Brian Ripel, Jean Shin, Michael Volonakis, & William S. Walker, Jr.

Image: Matthew Deleget, Shuffle painting series, 2007-present

We go far…And way back
Curated by Victoria Munro
SHOW
Staten Island, NY
June 20 - August 1, 2009
Opening: June 20, 2009, 2pm

Participating Artists: Andrew Barber, Julian Dashper, Matthew Deleget, Daniel Gottin, Kyle Jenkins, Lucy McMillan, Dane Mitchell, Jan van der Ploeg & Tilman

Image: Postcard

War Monochromes, 2007-present
Spray paint on canvases and wall, colors include red, black, green, fluorescent orange, silver and yellow
Dimensions variable

Exhibitions:
Matthew Deleget - War Monochromes
Sydney Non Objective, Sydney, Australia, 2007

Matthew Deleget - War Monochromes
Project Space Spare Room, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, 2009

Matthew Deleget - War Monochromes
The Engine Room, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand, 2010

Splendor of Dynamic Structure
Celebrating 75 Years of the American Abstract Artists
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 2011

For my project at SNO, and later on at RMIT and Massey, I wanted to focus on the Iraq war and Bush’s “Coalition of the Willing”, which unfortunately includes Australia, led by conservative Prime Minister John Howard. The six works I made for the show are part of a new body of work called War Monochromes. The painting installation was site-specific and the colors were based on those found on the deck of an aircraft carrier (war paint?). To make the piece, I purchased simple, low profile, ready-made canvases, hung them on the walls, and then sprayed an entire can of spray paint across the face of each. The spray paint coated the surfaces of the canvases and spread out onto the wall on all four sides, creating a kind of blurry aura. Graffiti artists refer to their practice as “bombing” and this certainly informed my thinking. Here, the spray paint hit its target, more or less, much like the munitions dropped by a Navy warplane.

War Monochromes (Blood & Treasure), 2009
Red and gold enamal spray paint on two canvases and wall
20 x 16 inches each

Exhibition:
Monochrome Utopia
532 Gallery Thomas Jaeckel, NY, 2009

Shuffle Paintings, 2006-present
Acrylic on masonite, each painting consists of 4 colors chosen at random, wall color also chosen at random
20 x 20 inches

Exhibitions:
transit — abstract I, II, III
project space Henselmann Tower, Berlin, Germany, 2006

Non Objectif Sud
La Barallière, Tulette, France, 2006

Matthew Deleget & Michael Zahn
ie. Contemporary Art Projects, Toowoomba, Australia, 2008

Abstract Realities
University of Southern Queensland Gallery, Toowoomba, Australia, 2009

We Go Far…And Way Back
Show Gallery, Staten Island, NY, 2009

Color Climate
Alejandra von Hartz Gallery, Miami, FL, 2010

This ongoing series of painting is inspired by the shuffle feature on my iPod. Each painting is restricted to four colors, each chosen at random. The walls on which the paintings are installed are also painted colors chosen at random.

All Stars, 2008
Acrylic, fluorescent and metallic acrylic on handmade paper, collaged elements
9 works total, 20 x 20 inches each

Commissioned by:
Newmark Knight Frank, New York, NY

No Man’s Land, 2008
Cadmium red light acrylic paint on panel hit with a hammer
18 x 24 inches (can be installed horizontally or vertically)

Exhibition:
MINUS SPACE
Curated by Phong Bui
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center / MoMA, Long Island City, NY, 2008-2009

Alumni Exhibition
Eric Dean Gallery
Wabash College, Crawfordsville, IN, 2011

Overlord (American Dream), 2008
Archival digital print
25 x 25 cm
Edition of 49
Included in UND Jetzt IS Box, a limited-edition print portfolio with 19 international artists
Published by IS Projects, Leiden, The Netherlands

Exhibition:
1/1…1/100
Curated by Susannah Cremer-Bernbac
GKG/Gesellschaft für Kunst und Gestaltung, Bonn, Germany

Dissuasive Fire, 2008
Orange monochrome paintings (fluorescent orange acrylic paint on panel), hit with a hammer
16 x 16 inches each, diptych
Private collection

Exhibitions:
Drawing a Conclusion
Curated by Danny Lacy
Peloton
Sydney, Australia, 2008

Drawing a Conclusion
Curated by Danny Lacy
Hell Gallery
Melbourne, Australia, 2008

Dissuasive fire is term used by the military essentially meaning fire first and ask questions later. For this project, I used fluorescent orange paint and two panels to elicit a quick blast of gun fire.

On the Back of a Hurricane (for Rudolf de Crignis), 2008
Blue monochrome, blue plastic shopping bag mounted on panel
12 x 12 inches

Exhibitions:
Considerable
Curated by Jeffrey Cortland Jones
Studio O, Artstreet, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, 2008

Touch of Faith
Curated by Jeffrey Cortland Jones
Semantics, Cincinnati, OH, 2009

A memorial work for blue monochrome painter Rudolf de Crignis (1948-2006).

Ghost Paintings, 2007
Fluorescent and metallic spray paint on paper
10 x 15 inches each

Exhibitions:
Und Jetzt
IS & Le Petit Port, Leiden, The Netherlands, 2007

Inside Out
ie. Contemporary Art Projects, Toowoomba, Australia, 2008

Abstract Realities
University of Southern Queensland Gallery, Toowoomba, Australia, 2009

American Abstract Artists International
The Aragonese Castle of Otranto, Otranto, Italy, 2010

In September 2007, I was invited for a month-long residency at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, located next to historic St. Mary’s City, the site of the first settlement in the colony of Maryland. It is also near a former Union Army prison where literaly thousands of Confederate soldiers died in captivity during the Civil War. This area of Maryland is rife with personal histories.

The college generously provided me with a furnished house and a private studio on a large plot of land next to the first road built in the colony (it looked like Sleepy Hollow). What the college failed to me tell me, however, which I quickly learned, was that the house was haunted. Now I’m not a superstitious person, but after countless uncanny experiences at the house — dishes rattling in the dish rack in front of me, shadows moving across walls, the television turning on and off unexplicably, etc. — I reached the following conclusion. The most rational explanation was that the house was haunted.

In response, I focused the duration of my residency on making paintings for ghosts. Abstract paintings for an abstract audience. I used vaporized paint (spray paint) in fluorescent and metallic colors on paper. The works were one-offs, immediate, and unedited.

Monochrome (Asymmetric Warfare), 2007
Black monochrome painting, black spray paint on canvas and wall
36 x 24 inches approximately

Exhibition:
New Advances in Abstract Painting
Tobey Fine Arts, New York, NY, 2007

Monochrome (Asymmetric Warfare) was my largest site-specific spray paint monochrome to-date. The piece, which was installed off-center on a large wall at the gallery, was incited by the Asymmetric Warfare Group, a new unit of the United States military created during the Global War on Terrorism. Asymmetric warfare refers to war between two groups whose relative military power differs significantly, including differences in goals, strategies, tactics, and available resources. My work, which was in essence a scorch mark on the wall resembling a bomb-drop, complemented artist Richard Bell’s target painting on the adjacent wall.

From Bad to Worse to Truly Terrible, 2007
Black monochrome paintings, gloss black latex paint over flat black latex paint on canvas
Dimensions variable, 8, 12, and 16 inches in diameter

Exhibition:
Material Matter
Curated by Kat Griefen
Sideshow, Brooklyn, NY, 2007

From Bad to Worse to Truly Terrible was a direct quote from a US soldier serving his n-th tour of duty in Iraq. I wanted the individual parts of this project to be immediate, so I made each by first painting the circular canvases matte black and then pouring gloss black paint over them. The black on black monochromes that resulted occupy the space somewhere between bullet holes and oil spills. I wanted the overall installation to approximate a pock-marked wall in a combat zone.

Monochrome (Sleeper Cells), 2007
White monochrome paintings, flat white latex paint on three mirrored papers, silver pushpins
40 x 100 inches overall; each panel 40 x 32 inches

Exhibitions:
Breaking the White Light
Curated by Scott Malbaurn
Platform, New York, NY, 2007

Notations: Under the Influence of John Cage
Curated by Joachim Pissarro, Julio Grinblatt & Bibi Calderaro
Hunter College Time Square Gallery, New York, NY, 2012

The conceit of this exhibition was the prismatic potential of white light. For the show, I made a kind of white light echo chamber consisting of white paint rolled out onto three sheets of mirrored paper. The approach was straightforward and matter of fact. I wanted to make a work that was both subsumed by and stood apart from the wall. The white paint I selected was the exact same used by the gallery to paint the walls. The edges of the mirrored paper dissolved into the wall depending on the angle of the lighting.

The idea for rolling out paint in this particular piece came from graffiti eradication near my studio. I find it interesting how property owners try to cover up graffiti by sloppily rolling paint over it, never taking much care in the process. Their purpose is just to get rid of the graffiti, irregardless of the final aesthetic results. Usually the new paint is a slightly different value and hue than the original wall color. The result usually ends up looking like a bunch of floating blocks of color on a slightly different colored field, something similar to an An Reinhardt painting.

The title of the work is based on the concept of a sleeper cell, which is a group of agents belonging to a foreign or terrorist organization that lies dormant and unseen inside a population until commanded to act. This was the second white monochrome piece I did on this subject (the first was in Auckland, New Zealand).

War Monochrome (Sleeper Cell), 2007
White monochrome painting, white spray paint on canvas and wall
16 x 20 inches

Exhibition:
Pacific Street: Julian Dashper, Matthew Deleget, Simon Ingram & Rossana Martinez
rm103, Auckland, New Zealand, 2007

rm103 is a non-profit venue located in a found office space in downtown Auckland. The walls were kept their original cream color and the floor covered in blue-gray carpet. The work I contributed to the show was a site-specific painting, a white monochrome. I purchased a simple, low profile, ready-made canvas, hung it on the wall, and then sprayed an entire can of white spray paint across the face of it. The spray paint coated the surface of the canvas and spread out onto the wall on all four sides, creating a kind of blurry aura around it. The work is based on the concept of a sleeper cell, which is a group of agents belonging to a foreign or terrorist organization that lies dormant and unseen inside a population until commanded to act.

Pink Nightmare, 2007
Pink monochrome painting (acrylic on panel), hit with a hammer
18 x 24 inches

Exhibitions:
Continuum: In Celebration of 70 Years of American Abstract Artists
St. Peters College Art Gallery, Jersey City, NJ, 2007

Subspecies
Tobey Fine Arts, New York, NY, 2007

Presque Rien 2
Curated by Gavin Turk & Cedric Christie
Laure Genillard Gallery, London, United Kingdom, 2009

I have been thinking a lot about monochrome painting lately, in particular how rigidly dogmatic and downright macho it can be. I wanted to make a piece that confronted this issue head on and sabotaged it. I emasculated my monochome, Pink Nightmare, by painting it a bubblegum pink and then beating the crap out of it with a hammer, until the piece was literally a shell of its former self. Unlike Fontana and other precedents who pierced the surface of a painting in a tasteful, aestheticized way, I was determined to make something distasteful, even vulgar. For me, Pink Nightmare is a kind of exorcism.

No If’s, No But’s, No Maybe’s, 2007
Three monochrome paintings (acrylic on panel), hit with a hammer
24 x 68 inches overall (24 x 18 inches each)
Private collection

Exhibition:
Radius
Metaphor Contemporary Art, Brooklyn, NY, 2007

No If’s, No But’s, No Maybe’s uses the default primary color setting red, yellow, and blue. This color structure has been used by countless artists over the past hundred years or so, and this work is both a homage to and subversion of that.

No If’s is about the end of orthodoxy. The title was inspired by an evangelist street preacher I listened to for more than an hour in a crowded subway car on the way to a friend’s apartment for Easter brunch. In a heavy Jamaican accent, the preacher kept droning on and on, “no eeefs…no botts…no maybeees, you will gooooooooo to hell.” Indeed. Change your ways, or straight to hell boys.

Overlord (American Dream), 2007
Black monochrome, black plastic garbage bag
36 x 33 inches
Edition of 20

Exhibitions:
My Eyes Keep Me in Trouble
Nieuwe Vide, Haarlem, The Netherlands, 2007

My Eyes Keep Me in Trouble
Sydney College of the Arts Gallery, Sydney, Australia, 2008

My Eyes Keep Me in Trouble
The Physics Room, Christchurch, New Zealand, 2008

Cytoarchitecture
Techno Park Studios, Melbourne, Australia, 2010

I was invited by artist/curator Tilman to participate in a group show he was curating called My Eyes Keep Me Trouble. The title came from a raunchy blues standard by legend R. L. Burnside and Tilman asked each artist in the show to contribute a work that addressed the title’s implications. My contribution was Overlord (American Dream). It was a large black monochrome, a plastic garbage bag readymade, unfolded, turned upside down, and simply pinned to the wall. I was attracted to the bag for a variety of reasons. In addition to being utterly valueless, I liked its formal qualities. I primarily paint in acrylic, which is essentially the same material as the bag, pigmented plastic. I also liked the regular grid pattern the bag retained when unfolded.

Overlord (American Dream) is about the war in Iraq. It is about American greed and warmongering for resources. It is about insatiable consumption and disposible everything. My eyes keep in trouble because that want endlessly. I deliberately decided to make Overlord (American Dream) as a mulitple — more stuff, less value, and more consumption.

The exhibition was also accompanied by a catalog that acted as an extension of the exhibition. Rather than publishing images of works included the show and statements by participating artists, Tilman asked each artist to contribute an image and text that again addressed the title of the exhibition. I contributed a downloaded photo of the US Pacific Fleet during a training exercise, taken from the perspective of the vanquished. My text (below) was essentially a litany of complaints:

What I Want
by Matthew Deleget

I want luxury and riches
I want the earth’s resources
I want haves and have nots
I want the axis of evil
I want the Patriot Act
I want weapons of mass destruction
I want the war on terror
I want the war machine
I want profiteers and mercenaries
I want dead and wounded
I want suicide bombers
I want to stay the course
I want the decider
I want imperialism
I want corporate government
I want waste and incompetence
I want unilateralism
I want fundamentalism
I want sectarianism
I want compassionate conservatism
I want the religious right
I want megachurches
I want TV preachers
I want marriage defended
I want the right to life
I want Constitutional amendments
I want global warming
I want environmental pollution
I want oil dependence
I want borders defended
I want corporate corruption
I want jobs outsourced
I want personal debt
I want identity theft
I want the working poor
I want the digital divide
I want spam
I want engineered food
I want fad diets
I want Viagra and male enhancement
I want boob jobs and Botox
I want AIDS
I want the uninsured
I want media moguls
I want propaganda as news
I want news as entertainment
I want disposable culture
I want fame without accomplishment
I want the paparazzi
I want reality TV and Paris Hilton
I want celebrity sex tapes
I want art as advertising
I want materialism and mass consumption
I want more

White Supremacist Composition, 2007
White monochrome, framed sheet of white foam stickers with Christian symbols
including crucifixes, Jesus fish, angels, hearts (readymade, purchased at Christian novelty store in Texas)
16 x 14 inches framed

Exhibition:
Subspecies
Tobey Fine Arts, New York, NY, 2007

Informal Relations: Contemporary Works on Paper
Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, Indianapolis, IN, 2011

White Supremacist Composition is a white monochrome readymade that I purchased in Texas. A sheet of stickers depicting cruxifixes, Jesus fish, and other Christian symbols, the work is a merger of Malevich’s Suprematist Composition: White on White painting (in MoMA’s collection) and the language of ultra right Christian conservatism (ie, the KKK and white supremacism).

I Love You, 2007
Used plastic shopping bags in 9 colors mounted on 9 panels
Dimensions variable

Exhibitions:
This exhibition…Melanie Crader, Matthew Deleget, Mick Johnson & Rossana Martinez
Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX, 2007

Accrochage
Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX, 2009

This exhibition… was a collaborative four-person project with artists Melanie Crader, Mick Johnson, and Rossana Martinez. We collectively conceived of the exhibition as a series of layered projects. We each contributed one individual work. Rossana and I collaborated on one additional work, as did Mick and Melanie. And then the four of us collectively installed the works in the exhibition as a single installation.

My contribution was I Love You, which was inspired by The Beatles song All Together Now (also, a humorous reference to collaboration). In the song, Paul McCartney sings the lines, “black, white, green, red — can I take my friend to bed? — pink, brown, yellow, orange, blue — I love you.” I am interested in these kinds of ‘found’ aesthetic references, a form of social abstraction. Why is McCartney singing the names of colors? Why does the Department of Homeland Security use a color system to rate the threat of a terrorist attack?

In my work I quoted McCartney directly and mounted plastic shopping bags on nine panels, one in each color and installed in the order found in the song. The bags were also found objects, obtained when I purchased stuff at bodegas and other local shops in NYC. I didn’t really fuss over the exact color of the bags — red was red, blue was blue, and so on. By using the shopping bags, I Love You really became a piece critical of consumerism and how it is often associated with deep, profound emotion, such as love.

Heart on Fire, 2006
Performance and site-specific installation at H29, Brussels, Belgium
Collaboration with Rossana Martinez

Exhibitions:
Matthew Deleget & Rossana Martinez
H29, Brussels, Belgium, 2006

This exhibition…Melanie Crader, Matthew Deleget, Mick Johnson & Rossana Martinez
Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX, 2007

This was my first collaborative project with my wife, artist Rossana Martinez. It consisted of a performance entitled Heart on Fire and an installation called Yellow Aid Station.

The performance was a short run through the Parc de Bruxelles Warande, during which we wore monochrome running clothes — Rossana in orange, I wore red. Rossana started from one point of the park and I started from the opposite side. We ran towards each other until we met and ended the run with a kiss Our idea was to make two colored lines through real time and space. The final photograph of the kiss was taken by a passerby who watched us performed and couldn’t help but ask to get involved in our project. Documentation of the performance — photos, maps, clothing, etc. — were exhibited in the gallery.

In addition to the performance, we also created an installation based on a runner’s aid station, which is usually a long table filled with cups of water. In our installation, however, the aid station consisted of a table with a grid of cups filled with wine and beer, which was consumed by the public during the opening. This work was part installation, part performance.

End of Empire, 2006
Acrylic on paper, 50 sheets
5 feet x 13.25 feet

Exhibition:
Works on Paper
Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX, 2006

The United States is without question an imperial empire and times certainly look a whole lot like the fall of the Roman Empire. American policy, values, and culture have entered into a decidedly post-classical (Hellenistic, Mannerist, Rococo) phase. Thinking about the United Kingdom during the 19th Century and the expression “the sun never sets on the British Empire”, I made a piece that, although non-objective, read like a big sunset.

End of Empire was made specifically for Gallery Sonja Roesch’s fall Works on Paper exhibition, for which the gallery asked me to create a piece related to my earlier work Red, Red, Red, Redder than Red (see below). The new piece was slightly larger and consisted of 50 individual sheets of paper (5 rows of 10 papers) pinned directly to the wall. The format of the piece was a double, horizontal square — I often work in a square or double square, panoramic format. End of Empire employed 5 rows of cadmium colors, each outlined with a darker “shadow” color. Rather than using grays and blacks for the shadow colors, I selected to use various hues and values of brown.

By total coincidence, during the course of the exhibition, the November 2006 general elections ushered in Democratic majorities in both the House of Representatives and Senate. This was particularly satisfying. The sunset became for the time being a sunrise.

Sugar Walls, 2006
Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 64 inches
Private collection

Mojo Workin, 2006
Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 64 inches
Private collection

Chan Chan, 2006
Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 64 inches
Private collection

Freak On, 2006
Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 64 inches
Private collection

Exhibition:
Matthew Deleget, Daniel Levine & Tilman
Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX, 2006

The four paintings I made for this exhibition were inspired by a Victoria’s Secret commercial. In the commercial, a supermodel in glowing bra and panties (Gisele Bundchen, possibly?) is presented head-on cat-walking through Pierre Koenig’s Modernist masterpiece Case Study House #22 (1960), with the city lights of a dark Los Angeles as backdrop. The supermodel is surrounded by glass curtain walls, modern furniture, and a swimming pool. The soundtrack is upbeat rock music. The image is superhyped, reductive and dazzling.

The horizontal format and inner proportions of these paintings referenced the language of Modernist architecture. The colors were deliberately hot, sexed up, almost garish, and were intended to reference skin and underwear. The paintings’ titles were deliberately provactive and referenced explicitly sexual songs by artists such as Missy Elliott (Freak On), Prince (Sugar Walls), and others.

Red, Red, Red, Redder than Red, 2006
Acrylic on paper, 32 sheets to be installed in any order
4 feet x 8 feet
Private collection

Exhibitions:
Greetings from Brooklyn: Matthew Deleget & Rossana Martinez
Hebel_121, Basel, Switzerland, 2006

10 Years of Hebel_121
Hebel_121, Basel, Switzerland, 2009

A wall work which can be installed in any conceivable order. The title was inspired by a Bob Marley song.