Press Information
1999 will be the Twentieth Anniversary year of the opening of Matt’s Gallery, which provides a fitting opportunity for the gallery to examine the wealth of documentation it has amassed over the 77 exhibitions of new work it has commissioned from 44 different artists over its history. Diverging from a more standard archive exhibition, BACKSPACE will simultaneously look back into the gallery’s past but also at its present and its future.

Simultaneously using all the gallery’s spaces BACKSPACE provides a unique opportunity for visitors to investigate the gallery's history, philosophy and artists in depth. The exhibition will present archival documentation of exhibitions by David Troostwyk, Joel Fisher, Jaroslaw Kozlowski, Robin Klassnik & Tom Clark, Susan Hiller, Jeff Instone, Michael Porter, John Blake, Tony Bevan, Tomasz Osinski, Robert Janz, Amikam Toren, Gerald Newman, Avis Newman, Nat Goodden, Sue Arrowsmith, lan McKeever, Nan Hoover, Gerard Hemsworth, Anthony Wilson, Imants Tillers, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Richard Wilson, lan Breakwell, Hanna Luczak, Hannah Collins, Brian Catling, Kate Smith, Jimmie Durham, Edgar Heap of Birds, Melanie Counsell, Willie Doherty, Thomas Holley, Melanie Jackson, Matthew Tickle, Mike Nelson, John Frankland, Xenia K. Dieroff, Lucy Gunning, Sean Dower, Juan Cruz and Graham Fagen, together with information on the gallery’s influences such Galerie Akumulatory 2, Poznan.

Going beyond more standard documentary methods, the presentation of film and video of exhibitions and their making, slide projections, audio and text, photographs and models, will also be integrated with actual works by many of these artists. The exhibition spaces will have a formal structure but, as it is virtually impossible to condense twenty years of activity into any fixed summary, all elements will be open to change, from the films being shown, the slides for projection, and the objects and work on display. In addition to the integration of works from the past and present with the archival material, one gallery will house a weekly changing programme of new works by artists represented by or associated with the gallery, providing the most tangible way to sample the artists’ current practice. This multi-layered, continually changing structure will hopefully create a fluid, dynamic process of sampling the gallery’s history and relationships that is intended to stimulate the viewer to return again and again.

The impetus for BACKSPACE arose from the need to begin to collate the wealth of information the gallery has accumulated so that it can be formally presented in a fully accessible public archive in the gallery’s presently undeveloped back space. This process requires significant funding, both for the staff to organise the material and for the retrival systems and the archive’s physical construction. As a signal of the gallery’s intention to establish this facility the archive process will be active during the exhibition, with new material being added to the displays as it is uncovered. This physical process, and the critical debates generated by the exhibition, will also form the backbone of the production of material for an intended publication investigating twenty years of Matt’s Gallery that the gallery hopes to publish at the end of 1999.

The gallery is actively seeking funds for these projects from the public and private sectors. Interested parties should contact the gallery for details.

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Biography
Born London 1964, British. Lives and works in London Studied 1989–90 Slade School of Fine Art, London (Postgraduate Higher Diploma in Sculpture) and 1987–89 West Surrey College of Art and Design (BA (Hons) Sculpture) Solo Exhibitions 2006 Punctum and Nebula, Hull Art Lab, Hull 2004 Nothing will come of nothing, Wolsey Art Gallery, Ipswich; Semi-Rhythm, Whitechapel Project Space, London; What the eye can’t see the heart can’t grieve for, a temporary public artwork at Queen Mary, University of London 1999 Idyll, Matt’s Gallery, London 1995 Scrutiny, Matt’s Gallery, London Group Exhibitions 2005 Fiona Crisp, Matthew Tickle, Phillip Warnell, Matt’s Gallery, London 2003 Revision, Pitfield Street, London; Don’t start from the good old things but the bad new ones, Whitechapel Project Space, London 2002 The Green Room, Percy Miller Gallery, London 2001 Dead-wall Reverie, Five Years, London, curated by Valerie Sutton 2000 Tourist, site-specific project commissioned by Space Explorations, London [catalogue] 1998/99 Furniture, Richard Salmon Gallery, London, John Hansard, Southampton and Bluecoat Art Centre, Liverpool [catalogue] 1998 BACKSPACE, Matt’s Gallery, London 1997 In Residence, In Transit, The Stanley Picker Gallery for the Arts, Kingston University 1996/7 Plastic, Richard Salmon Gallery, London; Arnolfini, Bristol; Walsall Museum & Art Gallery, Walsall [catalogue] 1996 High Rise, Space Explorations at 110 Euston Road, London [catalogue] 1995 Animale Domestici, Hollandstraat 20, Antwerp 1994 Tight, The Tannery, London; 1 million cubic feet, Space Explorations, Holborn Old Town Hall 1993 Mehr Licht (with Marcus Eisenmann), Goethe Institute, London; Hull Town Dock Museum as part of the Hull Sculpture Symposium 1992 Public installation at the Electric Light Station, presented by Space Explorations 1990 Work commissioned by the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London as part of ‘Whitechapel Artists Awards 1990’; Public installation at the Old Royal Observatory, London, presented by Space Explorations; Public installation at the British Rail Arch, Beck Road, London, presented by Space Explorations Scholarships, awards and residencies 2004 Cocheme Fellowship, Byam Shaw 2002 ESPRC Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Grant 2001 Calouste Gulbenkien Foundation Research Grant 2000 LAB Visual Arts Fund: Artists 1995 Arts Foundation Fellowship 1994 Rachel Whiteread / K Foundation Award 1991 Whitechapel Artists’ Award 1989/90 The Picker Fellowship in Sculpture at Kingston Polytechnic 1989 Boise Travel Scholarship Teaching (part-time) since 1993 includes MA Art & Architecture, University of East London; MFA Sculpture, Slade, University College London; BA Fine Art, Middlesex University; BA Fine Art, Ruskin School, University of Oxford; BA Fine Art, Norwich School of Art; Wimbledon School of Art, University of the Arts, London