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.

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, iridescent 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

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, 2007-2009
Monochrome paintings, red, black, green, fluorescent orange, silver and yellow spray paint on canvas and wall
16 x 12 inches each

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

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

For my project at SNO, and later at RMIT, 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

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

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
Orange monochrome painting, acrylic on panel hit with a hammer
24 x 18 inches

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

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

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

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

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

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

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, white latex paint on mirrored paper
40 x 32 inches each

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

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, see below for details).

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

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

The Physics Room
Christchurch, New Zealand, 2008

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 was essentially a litany of complaints.

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)
14 x 10 inches framed

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

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

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

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
Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 64 inches, 2006
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

10 Years of Hebel_121
Hebel_121, Basel, Switzerland, 2009

Case Study - Two Faced, 2006
Acrylic on masonite panel, diptych
16 x 16 inches each
Private collection

10 Years PS Amsterdam 1999-2009
Kunstruimte 09, Groningen, The Netherlands, 2009

Case Study - Devil
Acrylic on linen, 48 x 48 inches, 2006

Exhibition:
Presentational Painting III
Curated by Gabriele Evertz
Hunter College/Times Square Gallery, New York, NY, 2006

The subject of this exhibition was color, which has always been an important tool in my work. My work is not really about color, but rather uses it as a means to an end. For the exhibition, I made a suite of six, interrelated paintings, square in format, each consisting of four squares of a single color on a ground of a second color. I intended them to be a self-reflexive set and they were installed in the gallery as such.

On each painting, the squares were distributed like random tiles across an implied grid. No two paintings repeated the same placement of squares, nor the same colors. Each painting consisted of two colors, one earth tone and one highly artifical “plastic” color. I wanted the color combinations to be uncommon, slightly vibrating, and somewhat off-putting.

Making abstract painting is always a defensive position, so I selected titles for the six works that reflect abstraction’s outsider status. The specific titles were informed by the volley of insults and other provocative language used by both the Bush administration and Al Queda to describe each other.

Matthew Deleget: War Monochromes
Project Space Spare Room
RMIT University School of Art
Melbourne, Australia
May 8-29, 2009

Escape from New York
Curated by Matthew Deleget
Project Space Spare Room 
RMIT University School of Art
Melbourne, Australia
May 8-29, 2009

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 artist community affiliated with RMIT Non Objective.

Image: Installation view

Stayin’ Alive Benefit Auction
Metaphor Contempory Art
Brooklyn, NY
May 1 - May 19, 2009

5th Annual BAMart Silent Auction
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn, NY
April 29 - May 11, 2009

Image: Matthew Deleget, Black Operations, 2008, black monochrome, acrylic on panel, hit with a hammer, 12 x 16 inches

Pratt Institute Lecture
Brooklyn, NY
April 28, 2009

NEXT:POST Contemporary Art What’s Next? Panel
Rupert Ravens Contemporary
Newark, NJ
April 25, 2009, 1-3pm

Panelists:
Beth Venn, Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art, Senior Curator of American Art, The Newark Museum
Peter Nesbett & Shelly Bancroft, Founders/Directors, Triple Candie
Matthew Deleget
James Kalm, The Kalm Report
Moderated by Gae Savannah, artist & writer for Flash Art and Sculpture Magazine

Non-Objectif Sud
Benefit for Summer 2009 Exhibition
Gary Snyder Project Space
250 W. 26th Street
New York, NY
April 21, 2009, 6-8pm

Abstract Realities
University of Southern Queensland Art Gallery
Toowoomba, Australia
February 7 - March 6, 2009

Image: Shuffle Painting, Ghost Painting (left to right)

My Eyes Keep Me in Trouble Catalog
Published by The Physics Room, February 2009
Edition of 800
ISBN: 978-0-9582885-8-3

PS 1999-2009 Catalog
Essay by Justin Andrews
Published by PS & Kunstruimte 09, 2009

PS 1999 - 2009
Kunstruimte 09
Groningen, The Netherlands
January 17 - February 21, 2009

Image: Exhibition view

Accrochage
Soledad Arias, Matthew Deleget, Daniel Levine, Rossana Martinez, Ruth Pastine, Mario Reis, David Simpson, Hills Snyder & Tilman

Gallery Sonja Roesch
2309 Caroline Street
Houston, TX 77004
January 17 - February 28, 2009
Opening: Saturday, January 17, 2009, 5-7pm

Image: Matthew Deleget, I Love You, 2007, plastic shopping bags in 9 colors mounted on 9 panels, installation and dimensions variable, 8 x 10 inches each

School of the Art Institute of Chicago Lecture
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center / MoMA
Long Island City, NY
January 9, 2009

Monochrome Utopia
Sharon Brant, Matthew Deleget, Daniel Levine, Olivier Mosset, Erik Saxon & Li-Trincere

532 Gallery Thomas Jaeckel
532 W. 25th Street
New York, NY
January 8-30, 2009
Opening: Thursday, January 8, 2009, 6:00-8:30pm

Image: Olivier Mosset

10 Years of Hebel_121
Hebel_121
Basel, Switzerland
January 3 - February 14, 2009

Image: Exhibition view

Minus Space
Curated by Phong Bui
Organized by Matthew Deleget
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center / A Museum of Modern Art Affiliate
Long Island City, NY
October 19, 2008 - May 4, 2009
> exhibition info

Featuring 54 artists from 14 countries.

Participating Artists:
Soledad Arias, Shinsuke Aso, Marcus Bering, Hartmut Böhm, Richard Bottwin, Sharon Brant, Michael Brennan, Henry Brown, Vicente Butron, Bibi Calderaro, Melanie Crader, Mark Dagley, Julian Dashper, Christopher Dean, Matthew Deleget, Lynne Eastaway, Gabriele Evertz, Daniel Feingold, Kevin Finklea, Linda Francis, Zipora Fried, Daniel Göttin, Julio Grinblatt, Billy Gruner, Terry Haggerty, Lynne Harlow, Gilbert Hsiao, Andrew Huston, Simon Ingram, Inverted Topology, Kyle Jenkins, Mick Johnson, Steve Karlik, Sarah Keighery, Andrew Leslie, Daniel Levine, Sylvan Lionni, Lotte Lyon, Gerhard Mantz, Rossana Martinez, Juan Matos Capote, Douglas Melini, Manfred Mohr, Salvatore Panatteri, Dirk Rathke, Karen Schifano, Analia Segal, Edward Shalala, Tilman, Li-Trincere, Jan van der Ploeg, Don Voisine, Douglas Witmer & Michael Zahn

Escape from New York

Project Space Spare Room
RMIT University School of Art
Melbourne, Australia
May 8-29, 2009
> exhibition info

Sydney Non Objective
Sydney, Australia
August 3 - September 2, 2007
> exhibition info

A survey of reductive strategies by artists living in and around New York City. Presenting a single work from each artist, as well as an open letter to the artist community.

Participating Artists:
Soledad Arias, Richard Bottwin, Sharon Brant, Michael Brennan, Bibi Calderaro, Mark Dagley, Gabriele Evertz, Daniel Feingold, Kevin Finklea, Linda Francis, Zipora Fried, Julio Grinblatt, Lynne Harlow, Gilbert Hsiao, Andrew Huston, Steve Karlik, Daniel Levine, Sylvan Lionni, Rossana Martinez, Juan Matos Capote, Manfred Mohr, Karen Schifano, Analia Segal, Edward Shalala, Robert Swain, Li-Trincere, Don Voisine, Douglas Witmer & Michael Zahn

Maryland College Institute of Art
Baltimore, MD
December 8, 2008

Image: Ziger/Snead and Charles Brickbauer, Brown Center (2003), Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD

Internet for Artists
Creative Capital
New York, NY
December 5-7, 2008

Image: Louis Sullivan, Bayard-Condict Building (1897), 65 Bleecker Street, NYC

Newmark Knight Frank, NYC
All Stars, 2008
Nine works, acrylic, fluorescent and metallic acrylic, collaged elements on handmade paper
20 x 20 inches each

Image: Studio view with two works

Preque Rien II at Laure Genillard Gallery
by Colin Perry
Art Monthly magazine
December 2008-January 2009

Selected Exhibitions
10 UK Shows Art World Recommends: Presque Rien II at Laure Genillard Gallery
Art World magazine
UK/International edition
December 2008-January 2009

MINUS SPACE at P.S.1
The James Kalm Report
November 2, 2008

Click image to watch. Interview begins at 6:55.

MINUS SPACE: The Art of Reduction
by Phong Bui
P.S.1 Newspaper
Fall/Winter 2008

MINUS SPACE
Curated by Phong Bui
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center / MoMA
Long Island City, NY
October 19, 2008 - May 2009
Opening: Sunday, October 19, 12-6pm

Features 54 artists from 14 countries.

Presque Rien 2
Curated by Gavin Turk & Cedric Christie
Laure Genillard Gallery
London, United Kingdom
October 18, 2008 - January 10, 2009

Participating artists: Larry Bell, Toby Christian, Cedric Christie, Susan Collis, Clem Crosby, Matthew Deleget, Sebastien Delire, Ceal Floyer, Sayshun Jay, Clay Ketter, Mary Lemley-Miller, Simon Liddiment, Werner Reiterer, Perry Roberts, Gerwald Rockenshaub, Rona Smith, John Tremblay & Gavin Turk; Sound performance by Andy Cox, Lance Martin & Dave Ros

Image: Gavin Turk, The Air of Change, 2008, jar and air from 1968

Visual Arts MFA Program
School of the Arts
Columbia University
New York, NY
October 7, 2008

Reality Check Interview with Matthew Deleget
by Jackie Battenfield
The Artist’s Guide
October 2008

Creative Reflections on War and Peace:
Pratt Alumni Survey the Experiences and Consequences of War through Written and Visual Accounts
Prattfolio: The Magazine of Pratt Institute
Fall 2008

Featured my work “From Bad to Worse to Truly Terrible”, 2007.

“Although I would never consider myself a political artist, I have been terribly concerned about the War on Terror since 9/11 and it has been occupying a clear and central role in my work over the past few years. My installation From Bad to Worse to Truly Terrible is part of an ongoing series War Monochromes. The piece, which was shown in the Sideshow Gallery in Brooklyn in September 2007, references a quote from a U.S. soldier serving his N-th tour of duty in Iraq describing the deteriorating situation on the ground. The black-on-black monochromes in this installation, made by first painting the circular canvases matte black and then pouring gloss black paint over them, occupy the space somewhere between bullet holes and oil spills. I wanted the overall installation to approximate a pockmarked wall in a combat zone.”

American Abstract Artists: Tribute to Esphyr Slobodkina
The Painting Center
New York, NY
September 2-27, 2008

Matthew Deleget & Michael Zahn
ie. Contemporary Art Projects
Toowoomba, Australia
August 7-23, 2008

La vie en rond
H29
Brussels, Belgium
June 21 - September 20, 2008

My Eyes Keep Me in Trouble
Organized by Tilman & CCNOA

Sydney College of the Arts Gallery
Sydney, Australia
June 5 - August 1, 2008

The Physics Room
Christchurch, New Zealand
August 19 - September 13, 2008

Words Fail Me
Steve Karlik, Li-Trincere & Don Voisine

H29
Brussels, Belgium
May 24 - June 7, 2008
> exhibition info

Abstraction has a tenuous relationship with language. It often eludes description. Words Fail Me includes three New York City-based painters, each of whom contributed one painting to the exhibition.

Words Fail Me
Steve Karlik, Li-Trincere & Don Voisine

Curated by Matthew Deleget

H29
Brussels, Belgium
May 24 - June 7, 2008

Abstraction has a tenuous relationship with language. It often eludes description. Words Fail Me includes three New York City-based painters, each of whom contributed one painting to the exhibition.

Image: Installation view

Keynote Address — We Are the Revolution
Power Tools Professional Practice symposium
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, IL
May 19, 2008

Drawing a Conclusion
Curated by Danny Lacy

Peloton
Sydney, Australia
May 15 - June 7, 2008

Hell Gallery
Melbourne, Australia
June 28 - July 19, 2008

Participating artists: Ernesto Burgos, Nadine Christensen, Matthew Deleget, Anthony Farrell, Torben Giehler, Lily Hibberd, Chris LG Hill, Heidi Linck, Nick Mangan, Rob McHaffie, Ola Vasiljeva, Gabriella & Silvana Mangana

Communicate Better through the Web: A Guide for Visual Artists Workshop
Cue Art Foundation
New York, NY
May 7, 28 & 29, 2008

Mark Dagley: Shaped Canvas, Selections from 1987 catalog
Texts by Matthew Deleget & Nora Griffin, with a comprehensive interview by Don Voisine
Published by MINUS SPACE & Abaton Book Company, 2008
20 pages, color, 8.5 x 9 inches, 1,000 copies

The Front Row: Machine Learning at Gallery Sonja Roesch
Interview with Matthew Deleget, Henry Brown & Gilbert Hsiao
Houston Public Radio (KUHF.FM)
Thursday, April 24, 2008

Muse Fuse
NURTUREart
Brooklyn, New York
Wednesday, April 23, 2008, 7pm

Cleveland Institute of Art Visiting Artist
Cleveland, Ohio
April 16-19, 2008

Non-Objectif Sud
Benefit evening for summer 2008 exhibition
Gary Snyder Project Space
250 W. 26th Street
New York, NY
April 14, 2008

Inside Out
ie. Contemporary Art Projects
Toowoomba, Australia
April 5 - May 12, 2008

Image: Ghost Painting

Machine Learning
Henry Brown, Terry Haggerty, Gilbert Hsiao & Douglas Melini

Curated by Matthew Deleget

Gallery Sonja Roesch
Houston, TX
March 8 – May 3, 2008

A traveling exhibition examining pattern painting in the information age, featuring four NYC-based artists Henry Brown, Terry Haggerty, Gilbert Hsiao & Douglas Melini. A catalog accompanies the exhibition.

Image: Gilbert Hsiao, Encounter, 2006

Spring Selections
Ober Gallery
Kent, CT
March 6 - April 20, 2008

Participating artists: Frank Bauer, Joseph Beuys, Matthew Deleget, Robert De Niro, Sr., Carrol Dunham, Gabriele Evertz, Elena Figurina, Eberhard Havekost, Mary Heilman, Gilbert Hsiao, Steve Karlik, Daniel Levine, Lawrence Salander, Frank Stella & Don Voisine

Considerable
Curated by Jeffrey Cortland Jones
Studio O, Artstreet
University of Dayton
300 College Park
Dayton, OH
March 3 - April 4, 2008

Image from postcard

Technology in the Arts Guest Blogger
Center for Arts Management & Technology
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA
February 18-29, 2008

Keeping It Real (2.29.08)

The Good…& Just the Ugly (2.28.08)

Hazardous Sites (2.21.08)

Drop Serious Knowledge (2.20.08)

The IS Box
Published by IS Projects
Leiden, The Netherlands

Portfolio of prints by artists Justin Andrews, Sanne Bruggink, Christoph Dahlhausen, Matthew Deleget, Iemke van Dijk, Jasper van der Graaf, Billy Gruner, Clemens Hollerer, Kyle Jenkins, Sarah Keighery, Gracia Khouw, Arjan Janssen, Rossana Martinez, Jan van der Ploeg, Perry Roberts, Tilman, Jan Maarten Voskuil and Guido Winkler, accompanied by essays.

Intelligent Design, by John Goodrich
New York Sun
December 27, 2007
Review of Machine Learning exhibition

Machine Learning
Henry Brown, Terry Haggerty, Gilbert Hsiao, Douglas Melini & Michael Zahn

Curated by Matthew Deleget

The Painting Center
New York, NY
November 27 - December 22, 2007

A traveling exhibition examining pattern painting in the information age, featuring four NYC-based artists Henry Brown, Terry Haggerty, Gilbert Hsiao & Douglas Melini. A catalog accompanies the exhibition.

Machine Learning
Henry Brown, Terry Haggerty, Gilbert Hsiao & Douglas Melini

Curated by Matthew Deleget

Gallery Sonja Roesch
Houston, TX
March 8 – May 3, 2008
> exhibition info

The Painting Center *
New York, NY
November 27 - December 22, 2007
* exhibition also included artist Michael Zahn
> exhibition info

Boyden Gallery
St. Mary’s College of Maryland
St. Mary’s City, MD
September 4-28, 2007
> exhibition info

An exhibition examining pattern painting in the information age, featuring four NYC-based artists Henry Brown, Terry Haggerty, Gilbert Hsiao & Douglas Melini.

The title of the exhibition, Machine Learning, is inspired by a part of artificial intelligence concerned with the development of algorithms that allow computers to “learn”. Machine learning recognizes patterns within massive sets of information and has a wide range of real-world applications, the most ubiquitous of which is the Internet search engine.

The exhibition Machine Learning examines the relationship between abstraction and the information age, and presents four artists making new forms of pattern-based painting. The exhibition raises multiple questions. How has abstraction responded to the irresistible siren call of the Internet? How has abstraction digested the appearance, logic, and behavior of the Internet? And finally, with every conceivable kind of information now available at the click of a mouse, what are contemporary abstract artists’ core concerns?

Machine Learning Prequel

Boyden Gallery
St. Mary’s College of Maryland
St. Mary’s City, MD
September 2007 - January 2010
[on long term view]

St. Mary’s College has a remarkable art collection. I first learned this when I visited the college last spring to finalize details for Machine Learning, an exhibition I planned to curate at Boyden Gallery in the fall. The college’s collection was built in a unique way with a kind of do-it-yourself spirit. The collection was mainly formed through the maverick efforts of its faculty, who quite literally drove a truck up to places like to New York City, loaded it up with art purchased from artists’ studios and sympathetic galleries, and brought it back to the college. The faculty’s aspiration in all of this was to create a teachingcollection.

In that spirit, I’ve selected a group of works from the collection to be displayed in the corridor outside the gallery. This selection functions as a kind of prequel or point of entry into the exhibition inside the gallery, Machine Learning, which explores new pattern painting in the information age. Pattern painting, like all art forms, has a lengthy and provocative history, and the corridor gallery is filled with a select, yet diverse group of precedent works by nearly twenty artists made during the past sixty years.

On view are excellent examples of Op, Pattern, Hard-Edge, Color Field, Minimal, and Post-Painterly Abstraction. Personal highlights for me include works by Thomas Hart Benton (Jackson Pollock’s teacher), Victor Vasarely, Sam Gilliam, and James Carroll. I also included many compelling works by artists who are utterly new to me and whose names and work should be more widely known.

Machine Learning
Henry Brown, Terry Haggerty, Gilbert Hsiao & Douglas Melini

Curated by Matthew Deleget

Boyden Gallery
St. Mary’s College of Maryland
St. Mary’s City, Maryland
September 4-28, 2007

A traveling exhibition examining pattern painting in the information age, featuring four NYC-based artists Henry Brown, Terry Haggerty, Gilbert Hsiao & Douglas Melini. A catalog accompanies the exhibition.

Machine Learning catalog
Essay by Matthew Deleget
Images by Henry Brown, Terry Haggerty, Gilbert Hsiao & Douglas Melini
Published by MINUS SPACE, 2007
16 pages, color, 8.5 x 8 inches, 500 copies

Artist in Residence
St. Mary’s College of Maryland
St. Mary’s City, Maryland
September 2007

Escape from New York
Curated by Matthew Deleget
Sydney Non-Objective
Sydney, Australia
August 3 - September 2, 2007

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 artist community affiliated with Sydney Non Objective.

Artnet Magazine Picture Postcard
New York, NY
July 2007

My Eyes Keep Me in Trouble catalog
Nieuwe Vide
Curated by Tilman
Haarlem, The Netherlands
April 15 - May 23, 2007
Published by Nieuwe Vide & CCNOA, 2007
24 pages, color, 6 x 6 inches, 750 copies

Neighborhood Beat: Profile on MINUS SPACE
BCAT / Brooklyn Community Access Television
January 25, February 14, 19, 23, 2007