Art

Porter examines various technologies and styles that have lost their meaning in our new age, bringing them together in unlikely combinations and constellations, where formal qualities now outweigh original uses. It’s hybrid appropriation and reuse, but done the old fashioned way. The subject of this photo is wearing a custom dazzle camouflage suit that Porter commissioned, and is inspired by Dazzle Camouflage ships from WWI, which was employed, not in order to conceal the ship, but rather to make it difficult for the enemy to estimate its type, size, speed and direction of travel. Bauhaus faculty and students had a playful tendency to photograph one another wearing their respective designs. Porter is particularly interested in Erich Consemüller’s pictures of a woman seated in a Breuer chair. It’s unknown exactly who the model was—she wears a mask designed for a theatre production, and her clothes are products of the school’s textile workshops. A mask, a dress, and a chair—all items that the Bauhaus school had given a modern facelift, arguably all surface, a purely aesthetic upgrade that left core concepts unchanged. Matthew Porter (b. 1975, Pennsylvania) received his BA from Bard College in 1998 and his MFA from Bard-ICP in 2006. His work has been exhibited in galleries in New York, Los Angeles, Paris and London, including Under Construction – New Positions in American Photography, a group exhibition at Foam Museum in Amsterdam that then travelled to the Pioneer Works Center for Art and Innovation in Brooklyn; After Photoshop at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Perspectives at the International Center of Photography Museum, New York. Porter’s work is held in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio; The Sir Elton John Photography Collection; the UBS Art Collection, New York; the Statoil Collection, Norway and the Traina Collection, San Francisco. Porter's curatorial projects include Soft Target, organized with Phil Chang at M+B, Los Angeles; Seven Summits at Mount Tremper Arts, New York; The Crystal Chain at Invisible Exports, New York and Bedtime for Bonzo at M+B, Los Angeles, which was an ARTFORUM Critics' Pick in 2011. He is the co-editor of Blind Spot magazine Issue 45 and his writings and interviews have been featured in Triple Canopy, Blind Spot, ARTFORUM.com and Canteen. MACK Books recently published his first monograph “Archipelago.” Matthew Porter lives and works in Brooklyn.