Matty Davis

Matty Davis is an artist working at the intersection of the writing, dance, and the visual arts who is engaged in collaborative, embodied explorations of the tension between our fragility and our fortitude.

Davis is the author of six books, and since 2021 has been trailblazing a new form, “performance arranged for print,” that uniquely synthesizes writing, photography, choreography, and experimental publishing methods. As part of his collaborative practice, he has worked with artists including Hito Steyerl, writers Will Arbery and Chloé Cooper Jones, and many other people across the vocational spectrum: from surgeons to carpenters, aviators to athletes.

Over the last decade, Davis’s work has been presented by various institutions in the US and abroad, in addition to many site-specific locations integral to the conceptual core of a given work, from mountains to hurricane-churned shorelines, living rooms to the gritty concrete of New York City. Institutionally, his work has been presented by the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Momentary (Bentonville, AR), the ICA Miller at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA), the Fine Arts Center at the University of Arkansas, The Anderson at Virginia Commonwealth University, Kanal Centre Pompidou (Brussels), Bozar (Brussels), the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), the Arts Arena (Paris), the Max Ernst Museum (Brühl), Pioneer Works (NYC), Steppenwolf Theater (Chicago), et al. He is currently working on a new commission for the High Line.

Fellowships and residencies include Ucross, the Watermill Center, the Edward F. Albee Foundation, the Iowa City Press Co-op, and the Braddock Carnegie Library in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University, among others. Davis has taught workshops and masterclasses at Kenyon College, Oberlin College, New York University, the University of Iowa, the University of Kansas, the Kansas City Art Institute, and the University of California - Davis, as well as worked with younger students at the Professional Performing Arts High School in New York, the Philadelphia School, and the Arkansas Arts Academy. For more information, please visit www.mattydavis.net.