KUNSTHALLE seitenlichtsaal
Matt Connors – Gas... Telephone... One Hundred Thousand Rubles
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Exhibition wall text for Matt Connors with bilingual intro and a painting on view.

Installationview, KUNSTHALLE seitenlichtsaal, Matt Connors – Gas… Telephone… One Hundred Thousand Rubles
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 2011
Photo: Katja Illner

Subtly and with ease, Matt Connors draws on art historical, literary, and musical references, which he places in a new context. Connors employs a repertory of forms familiar from the history of abstract painting: basic geometrical forms, rapid brushstrokes, and hatches along with seemingly playfully applied letters and digits. He uses the potential of abstract painting and when viewed, his works are constantly open to new interpretations. The artist takes up quotations and painterly solutions, but continuously expands on them by transcending the boundary of the picture: canvases become objects and painting is put in relation with the surrounding space by means of an almost theatrical staging. Connors produces self-referential paintings – a kind of narrative minimalism that invites new interpretations of image, object, and space.

Please find here the catalogue of the exhibition.

Images

Installation view with a blue rod sculpture in front of a painting and a smaller work nearby.

Installationview, KUNSTHALLE seitenlichtsaal, Matt Connors – Gas… Telephone… One Hundred Thousand Rubles
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 2011
Photo: Katja Illner

Two abstract paintings: one with vertical color stripes, one with a pale, speckled surface.

Installationview, KUNSTHALLE seitenlichtsaal, Matt Connors – Gas… Telephone… One Hundred Thousand Rubles
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 2011
Photo: Katja Illner

Two framed abstract paintings side by side, one with a white chevron motif, one with color blocks.

Installationview, KUNSTHALLE seitenlichtsaal, Matt Connors – Gas… Telephone… One Hundred Thousand Rubles
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 2011
Photo: Katja Illner

Installationview

Installationview, KUNSTHALLE seitenlichtsaal, Matt Connors – Gas… Telephone… One Hundred Thousand Rubles
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 2011
Photo: Katja Illner

Corner with four small-format abstract paintings on white walls

Installationview, KUNSTHALLE seitenlichtsaal, Matt Connors – Gas… Telephone… One Hundred Thousand Rubles
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 2011
Photo: Katja Illner