Matt Hill | | atractivoquenobello

Kris Abdai is presenting the Hats off exhibition in collaboration with Matt Hill (aka Umberto) and Kineret Louri at Berlin’s Ashley, opening May 13 and running to May 26.

Closing their Winter 2016 Residency Program, the gallery will be transformed into a theatre consisting of two cinemas that operate as a stage. Live scenes will be presented throughout the exhibition featuring a film in each room: ‘Don’t Look at Me’ directed by Abdai and scored by Hill and ‘Enjoy Your Voice!’ directed by Kineret Louri.

Berlin-based artist Abdai works across time-based media, including sound video and performance with particular focus on “the face and the close-up”. Hill’s Umberto project is based in Los Angeles, releasing music on labels like Not Not Fun, Death Waltz Originals, and Permanent Records, while Louri is a London-based Israeli artist working with collage, moving image, sound and drawing.

See the FB event page for details.**

Kris Abdai, POP GOES THE REAL (2015). Video still. Courtesy the artist. — Kris Abdai, ‘POP GOES THE REAL’ (2015). Video still. Courtesy the artist.

One of the most worn-out clichés used to describe certain strains of instrumental music is calling it ‘a soundtrack to a non-existent movie’. In the case Confrontations by Umberto (aka Matt Hill) the description is justified, as his work is directly grounded in film scores. To be more specific, in film music of a particular genre and era: think late 70s/early 80s European giallo and American slasher movies. Their appeal is clearly understandable – nothing captures the magnetism of cinematic artifice better than these illogical and absurdly violent productions, born somewhere between commerce and the sheer love of film. A recent critical success, Berberian Sound Studio (scored by Broadcast), explored the potential for fascination that genre films provide. Those made by Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci and other masters of horror embody the artificial on a musical level too: their films boast rich, synthesizer-based compositions, adding another layer of inorganic stylistic artifice to proceedings.

Continue reading Umberto’s ‘Confrontations’ explored.