Matt Ager

Matt Ager @ Studio Leigh, Nov 10 – Jan 14

7 November 2016

Matt Ager is presenting solo exhibition Gusto at London’s Studio Leigh, opening November 10 and running to January 14.

The London-based artist will present a new body of work. Often working with sculpture and object-based collage, the final product is formed through collecting remnants and fragments that then undergo a process of re-invention that sits strangely between the spaces of lofi and skilled craftsmanship.

Previous exhibitions include Sunday School #11 at London’s DAM Projects (2015), Sheer Like at Antwerp’s Lokaal 01 (2015) and Suzuki Montage at London’s Space in Between (2014).

See the Studio Leigh websote for details.**

Matt Ager. Courtesy of artist + Studio Leigh
Matt Ager. Courtesy of artist + Studio Leigh
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Maybe Your Lens is Scratched? @ Slate Projects, Jun 24 – Jul 24

24 June 2016

The Maybe Your Lens is Scratched? group exhibition is on at London’s Slate Projects, opening June 24 and running to July 24.

Artists included are mostly London-based such as Matt Ager, Lauren Keeley, May Hands, Lawrence LekBecky Beasley, We Are Visual design group, and many more.

There is no information to accompany the show which is curated by Bianca Baroni and Alex Meurice, although it seems the artists selected to exhibit work with the potential of materiality found in imagery and display.

Slate Projects is itinerant and for Maybe Your Lens is Scratched? will be based in Averard Hotel, an empty nineteenth-century mansion house in West London turned into hotel and currently awaiting renovation.

See the Slate Projects website for (limited) details.**

Lauren Keeley, Garden (2015). Courtesy the artist and Supplement, London
Lauren Keeley, ‘Garden’ (2015). Courtesy the artist and Supplement, London.

 

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Is It Heavy or is it Light? @ Assembly Point, Jan 21 – Feb 27

21 January 2016

The Is it Heavy or Is it Light? group show is on at London’s Assembly Point, opening January 21 and running to February 26.

Artists Rebecca Ackroyd, Matt Ager, Jemma Egan, Ziggy Grudzinskas, Edgar–Walker, who also run the space and are curating the show, will be presenting works reflecting on depth and surface, dullness and shine, meaning and superficiality and the conditions that float around production and making.

Is it Heavy or Is it Light? takes its title and investigation from a recent essay by Brian Kuan Wood who notes that “we might say that we now function so purely in the realm of the idea that any substance becomes ephemeral regardless of whether it is art or not.” The show will also think about mood and what mood art can make you in, despite the weight, level and intention of the work in question.

See the FB Event page for more details**

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Inaugural exhibition launch @ Studio_Leigh, Sep 24

23 September 2015

London’s Studio_Leigh has invited 27 artists to explore the value of art in a group exhibition that will launch with a private viewing on September 24.

The more than two dozen participating artists—which include Cecile B. Evans, Matt Ager and Laurence Owen—taking part in the gallery’s inaugural show, provide works that consider how their individual artistic biases interact and overlap with the materiality and function of art.

“The resultant works,” the press release states, “all aim to extend the artists’ inherent visual or conceptual interests into the quotidian.” The exhibition will be accompanied by an essay from Amy Sherlock, Reviews Editor of Frieze.

See the Studio_Leigh website for details. **

Cecile B. Evans, How Happy a Thing Can Be, 2014, HD Video; Courtesy the Artist, Radar/LUA and Wysing Arts Centre.
Cecile B. Evans, How Happy a Thing Can Be, 2014, HD Video; Courtesy the Artist, Radar/LUA and Wysing Arts Centre.
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Matt Ager, Suzuki Montage (2014) exhibition photos

19 December 2014

Overlooking the canal and gas towers, tucked in between trendy Broadway Market and Mare Street, Matt Ager’s Suzuki Montage was on at London’s Space in Between, running November 21 to December 13. In his last year at the Royal Academy Schools (itself a barometer of standard, with its 17 students-per-year, its second year show rather shamelessly called Premium) the artist’s remit lies in the “subtle interactions between people and objects”.

‘The Cashier’ (2014) sees a big, slightly shaky, letterman-style O centered over a screen-printed motif. The prints themselves are like pages torn from the sketchbook of a charcoal obsessive; the rough and ready clashes with the high-street ubiquity of the Varsity lettering. These pieces are for the most part self-contained, neatly delineated from the walls or space of the gallery. While ‘The Cashier’’s black overspill of its bounds is anomalous, it sits within the show’s broader materially contiguous nexus.

Matt Ager, 'Suzuki Montage' (2014) @ Space in Between. Exhibition view. Courtesy the gallery.
Matt Ager, Suzuki Montage (2014) @ Space in Between. Exhibition view. Courtesy the gallery.

It is one of two works utilising melamine; a semi-toxic compound, it is used both in the production of Formica plastic and as an illegal additive to certain foodstuffs, offering a quick and easy way to ostensibly boost protein content. Ager’s MO of “selecting raw and found materials, which have a specific hook… as a starting point” alleviates some of the snideness in the suggestion that perhaps here it is used to bolster content in a different way.

The works are largely wall based; ‘Throw That Mango’ and ‘Put Down That Mangooffer another exercise in material cooption, using roofing sheet and a line to present a form evocative of the office space, cabling and a certain high-street electronics supplier’s logo. ‘Slow and Steady’ (2014) and ‘Coaching in Comfort’ (2014) constitute two main deviations from the rest, in colour and interaction with space, respectively.

1Matt Ager, 'Suzuki Montage' (2014) @ Space in Between. Exhibition view. Courtesy the gallery.
Matt Ager, Suzuki Montage (2014) @ Space in Between. Exhibition view. Courtesy the gallery.

‘Slow…’ returns to the Melamine, its red coming as something of a relief against the monochromatic austerity of the rest. ‘Coaching’, the only non-wall-based sculpture, functions as a kind of screen. Situated by the black front door, its also black sheets hang from the ceiling. A white, imperfect resin sphere sits on one of its neat curls like a full stop. The hanging material delineates space; anti fatigue mat, this one. Close up, it is ridged, like corduroy. Like corduroy it seems weighty.

The artist’s attempt here at a “transubstantiation” of material is strong enough to also transubstantiate the .jpegs on which this piece of writing is based into a sense of the physical, but only just. Really, images here are only tantalising hints. The success of the show’s exploration of people’s interaction with the material object must surely be best measured physically. **

Matt Ager’s Suzuki Montage was on at London’s Space in Between, running November 21 to December 13, 2014.

Header image: Matt Ager, Suzuki Montage (2014) @ Space in Between. Exhibition view. Courtesy the gallery.

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