Matthias Neumann
CL_01
Matthias Neumann is an architect and artist based in Brooklyn, New York. His work fluctuates between architecture and a wide range of artistic media, with a particular focus on public space and its material, spatial and social implications. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including at venues such as Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain (2010), the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest, Romania (2014), the former Public Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan (2013), Montalvo Art Center, Saratoga, California (2016), and the Cape Cod Museum of Art (2017), among others.
Over the past two years he has been engaged with a body of work under the title “basics”, which explores an abstracted notion of form, space and utility, with installations in public spaces throughout the US.”Basics” is based on a constructive logic of additive dimensional lumber, configured spatially following a set of formal vocabulary. The current work, “CL_01” for “Eotechnic Sensorium” follows this body of work in constructive and material intent by using the most ubiquitous building material available, the 2×4 wood stud, to construct an elevated everyday monument to constructive logic, reaching out to the 3 cardinal directions. “CL_01” echoes my continued interest in how simplicity in constructive logic and material can formulate a notion of the everyday and site-specificity that encourages uncertainty in the dialog between the viewer and the materiality of the work, opening possibilities in the public quality and appropriation of the work. Monumental gestures often reside in the underlying notion of permanence and eternity, “CL_01” offers a notion of a monumental temporality that carries its dissolution and impermanence within the structural assembly and the unpreciousness of the choice of material.