Andy Mattern | Optimal Conditions

This past Friday, Pictura hosted the opening reception and artist talk for Andy Mattern’s ​‘Optimal Conditions’ that will be on view until March 28.

By covering and removing existing elements, Andy Mattern reconfigures familiar photographic materials, such as photo paper boxes and paper guides once used to determine exposure and other image settings. Mattern disrupts familiar examples of photographic art and creates intriguing new surfaces.

The curatorial statement:

Andy Mattern’s exhibition, ​‘Optimal Conditions’ brings together three of the artist’s recent projects, all looking at the physical surfaces of photographic materials. In the series, ​‘Standard Size’, Mattern begins with a familiar tool of the trade, the humble, standard-size photo paper box. He proceeds to erase, cover and decontextualize the container until it is remade. The new objects are spacious and playful like a Diebenkorn painting, careful, but imperfect, with markers of the human hand. Mattern follows the trail of markings on each box and arrives at compositionally satisfying, graphically beautiful explorations in form and color. They begin as photographic materials, and they end as photographs, but somewhere in the middle, they exist as the artist’s semi-sculptural, textural paintings.

Across the room, ​‘Just Noticeable Difference’ beckons with a curious violet glow. Turning again to the material surface, Mattern illuminates the variations between optimized inkjet papers. By exposing them to UV light, he reveals the chemical engineering that goes into enhancing things like brightness and contrast to create a desirable print. These additives are usually hidden from sight, but when the papers are viewed side by side, they are remarkably visible.

In an era of intentional genetic modification, of plants, other living organisms, and even ourselves, Mattern’s display of modified photographic papers feels like a symbolic representative of something larger. He points out that these alterations may have unknown outcomes on the health and longevity of the prints. Indeed, it seems that many techniques of chemical modification haven’t been around long enough for us to determine their long-term effects. But Mattern’s installation gives more wonder than warning, inviting us to simply enjoy the variations.

The centerpiece of the exhibit is the series, ​‘Average Subject / Medium Distance’. Mattern photographs small vintage amatuer Kodak guides, removing text until only one provocative word remains in each image. He’s honed in on highly generative words like ​“doubt” and ​“desire.” The erasure of reference points makes the work playful but also subtly affecting. It is funny to imagine that we could measure doubt with a dial, or that we could accurately assess what is ​‘normal, known, or of value’ with a hand tool.

The graphic tools imply a plausible measurement, and the appeal is hard to deny. With a lure not entirely unlike a Magic 8 ball, they hold out a simple way to make measurements in categories that are otherwise nebulous. But like Mattern’s boxes without paper, and the wall papers without imagery, they are guides without clear directions. Mattern’s work, with its bright and cheerful colors, gently nudges us to reflect on the human need to categorize and define our surroundings and even our emotions



Photos from the event: