Eva & Franco Mattes’ installations grapple with the effects of technology on our daily lives. They examine the function and distribution of photographs that we regularly reveal on social networks, and that constantly inundate us online. What we see affects how we form our worldview, and the images we view are increasingly controlled by invisible mechanisms. On the basis that the Internet is not a free, utopian place, but a more and more centralized, corporatized and monitored system, the artists make visible the underlying infrastructure and the people who work within it. With a good dose of black humor, they sensitize our perception to these dynamics. The starting point of the works is an intensive personal exchange with the people who work for large Internet companies. Based on these individual feedbacks, political and ethical questions surface in the Mattes’ practice with regard to the handling of media images. Due to the ambiguous separation of private and public, Internet users do not only receive media, but also broadcast data with a vast reach that disseminates systems of social norms right up to the strengthening of ideologies. The first solo show by the artist duo in Germany combines new productions with works from the last five years.
About the artists /
Eva & Franco Mattes (both *1976 in Italy, live and work in New York) have been working together since 1995. After solo exhibitions in Italy, Spain, Great Britain, Slovenia, the Netherlands, India, Canada and the USA as well as participation in group exhibitions around the world, a solo exhibition will follow in spring 2021 in the Fotomuseum Winterthur and from May 2021 in the Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, the artist duo's first solo exhibition in Germany. They have participated in the Rencontres d’Arles (2018), the Yokohama Triennale (2017), the 20th Biennale of Sydney (2016), Manifesta 4 (2002) and the 49th Biennale di Venezia (2002). Works are among others in the permanent collections of SFMOMA in San Francisco, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the X Museum in Beijing.
