Matter

Holly Hendry, Ernesto Cánovas, Gracjana Rejmer, Robert Cervera, Patricia Pisanelli, Alan Sastre, Nora Aurrekoetxea, Antoine Langenieux-Villard, Silvia Lerín, Pablo Castañeda, Saelia Aparicio, Kristian Kragelund, Pablo A. Padilla Jargstorf.

Río & Meñaka, SpainsNow and SCAN come together for the first time in London to inaugurate Matter, a group exhibition with works by 13 international artists who live and work in the British capital. The exhibition can be visited from January 15 to February 14, 2019 in the WeCollect space at County Hall in London.

The Anglo-Saxon term 'matter' brings together three different but related notions. On one hand (matter) is the word for the physical entity; what occupies space and has mass. At the same time, (matter = issue) is a topic to consider, what happened, an incident, an episode; it's just a matter of time. But in addition (matter = importance) it also implies an active principle, a state of significance, possibly fleeting. The three meanings are linked by a thread of weight or a measure of importance.

If the material is important, if it is worthy of consideration, it may be as a record of the development of an idea or line of work. Reasoning is the act of thinking about something in a logical way; Material reasoning can be a way or practice of thinking through material investigation, repetition, play, or study procedures.

The artists participating in Matter pursue varied practices, but share an interest in investigating material with and against meaning. Meaning and material sometimes align, but not always; Things are not what they seem... Like Peter Pan's shadow, meaning can slip, become detached. Peter's shadow fades as he flies out of the closing window. What kind of synthesis occurs when meaning is split and relaxed?

Matter encapsulates meaning, but at the same time releases it... The thought moves forward... but the material remains, on the floor, on the table, on the wall. Maybe starting a new process…

New Materialisms place matter at the center of artistic practice and emphasize production over discourse and give preference to the value of physicality and materiality over conceptual models based on language or syntax.

Matter is what we see, and what we use to do. The works in Matter explore the possibilities of construction and material and consciously play with what matters.