Tyburn Gallery
Frieze Sculpture 2018

Tyburn Gallery is delighted to announce that we will be presenting a large-scale sculpture by Michele Mathison for the 2018 edition of Frieze Sculpture in Regent’s Park, London.

Mathison's practice involves transforming everyday objects into charged artistic declarations. Informed by his own migratory experience, living primarily in South Africa and Zimbabwe, his sculptures and installations form a visual language commenting on both the personal and political. For this particular work, the artist has used metal street lamps, fixed together to create a subversive sculptural form.

With Parallax, Michele Mathison draws attention to broken urban infrastructure in Harare and Johannesburg as a form of ersatz public sculpture, memorializing decay and the collapse of the civic. With their function as a light eroded, they become more clearly aesthetic objects, as well as signifiers of a break down in the areas they are found. And they are beautiful, in copy as in the original, with care in their design and construction: tapering elegantly as they rise from the base to the lamp, their curved necks forming graceful parabolas. These are reconstructions of street lamps, rather than found objects, made using the same materials and techniques, allowing the artist to make hero versions of the ubiquitous objects. With only a couple of working lights in Michele’s construction, held aloft by the other lamps clustered in tottering solidarity, raising one of their own aloft.

• Ralph Borland
  
Frieze Sculpture 2018 features works by 25 contemporary and modern artists, selected by Clare Lilley (Director of Programme, Yorkshire Sculpture Park). The exhibition will be open in Regent's Park, London, from 4th July, throughout the summer, and remain on view until Frieze London closes on 7th October.

For more information, see the Frieze website: https://frieze.com/article/frieze-sculpture-2018

About the Artist

Michele Mathison was born in 1977 in Johannesburg, South Africa and currently lives and works between Zimbabwe and South Africa.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art Honors, Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, South Africa in 2000.

Recent solo shows include State of Emergence, Whatiftheworld, Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa (2017), Uproot, Tyburn Gallery, London, UK (2016); Harvest, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), Scheryn Pavilion, Cape Town, South Africa (2015); Manual, Whatiftheworld, Cape Town, South Africa (2014), and Exit/Exile, Nirox Projects, Johannesburg, South Africa (2011). Mathison has produced commissions for Carvela, Running in Circles (2012) and Slow Lounge, Carto/Graphic 1 (2011).

Group exhibitions include African Voices: Confronting the Frontiers of Reality, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe (2017), A Place in Time 2016, NIROX Foundation in collaboration with Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Nirox Sculpture Park, Johannesburg, South Africa (2016), Broken English, Tyburn Gallery, London, UK (2015), You Love Me, You Love Me Not, Municipal Gallery, Almeida Garrett, Portugal (2015), African Odysseys, The Brass Artscape, Brussels, Belgium (2015), and Nirox Sculpture, Nirox Sculpture Park, Johannesburg, South Africa (2014). The artist also participated in Dudziro, at the Zimbabwean Pavilion for the 55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2013).

The artist recently created a large-scale public sculpture for the V&A Waterfront on the occasion of the opening of the Zeitz Musum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town, South Africa. As well as being included in the collection of the Zeitz MOCAA, his works form part of collections of the Norval Foundation (Cape Town, South Africa), Spier Arts Trust (Cape Town, South Africa), Sindika Dokolo Foundation (Luanda, Angola), ArtColl Trust (Seattle, USA), as well as the Standard Bank Art Collection (Cape Town, South Africa).

Mathison will present a second solo exhibition at Tyburn Gallery in 2018, running from 3rd October to 14th November.