Alumnus Matthew C. Wilson '13 in Two Group Exhibits this Winter
This winter, alumnus Matthew C. Wilson '13 has artwork in two group exhibits—one in Belgium, the other in the Netherlands.
In Brussels, the group exhibit titled The Institute of Cosmic Superimposition is hosted at the gallery V2Vingt. The show’s name draws inspiration from the 20th century desire to conquer space. The Institute of Cosmic Superimposition brings together artworks and texts by several contributors unified by a fascination with the cosmological. All exhibit a desire to explore ways of mapping outer space, speculating on what might be out there.
The gallery describes Wilson’s work in the show as being, “Shot entirely in infrared and drawing upon the genres of science-fiction and documentary, Wilson’s work touches on the current uncertainty regarding the future of human life in the face of climate change. On one level, the film’s haunting landscape clearly evokes cinematic depictions of planets such as Mars. At the same time, though, it might also refer to the contemporary moment as seen through non-human eyes, or a post-apocalyptic world.” The Institute of Cosmic Superimposition runs from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12.
In Amsterdam, Wilson’s work is featured in the group exhibit titled Drained Atlas at PuntWG. Visual artists Oscar Santillán and Wilson, who have been in dialogue for almost ten years, present their works together for the first time in this two-person exhibition. According to the gallery, “In each artist’s own way, they draw out complex relations between seemingly disparate histories, methodologies, and cosmologies shaping the way humans relate to their present location in time and space. In Drained Atlas the artists present recent and new works bringing together the histories and speculative futures of scientific exploration as the entangled process of undoing worlds to generate new ones.” The show runs from Nov. 16 to Dec. 8.
Wilson is an American artist based between the Netherlands and Finland. In his videos, sculptures, and installations viewers meet a range of agents—mercurial materials, sites, non-humans, personae, and inter-subjective entities—that are entangled with natural processes and shape-shifting historical forces. Wilson has been a participant in the Whitney Independent Study Program and numerous residencies including the Jan van Eyck Academie and Skowhegan. Recently, Wilson launched the Spectral.Exchange platform as an outcome of an Artistic Research Residency at Tabakalera, San Sebastián, ES, and premiered his short film Within the Temple Without at IFFR - International Film Festival Rotterdam. Wilson is currently the Artist in Residence at Aalto University in Helsinki.