Matt Blackler
200 Fruitboxes/Gone West

in The Magnificent Basement
128 Farringdon Road EC1R 3AP

Public view 7 to 9.30pm
Saturday 21st August

Open by appointment until Friday 27th August

A MacGyver of sorts, Matt Blackler creates artworks using outmoded and labour intensive techniques that playfully hark back to a romanticised past. His diverse practice ranges from still images to kinetic machines, with his artworks often presenting the aesthetics of their production. Quirky and candid, these display strategies (de)mystify Blacker's complex investigations, luring viewers into his arcane and obscure practice.

For his solo project at The Magnificent Basement, Blackler presents two series of works. In 'Gone West', Blackler re-examines Muybridge's 'The Horse in Motion', subverting its process through a machine which over the course of the exhibition slowly exposes an image of a bronze horse onto a photo-sensitive plate. The bronze horse will later be re-created for each of the positions present in the 12 Muybridge photographs and his machine will again capture the image of each immobile object in a week-long exposure. Blackler's machine thus becomes a contemporary version of Muybridge's camera and summarises in itself the evolution in our attitudes to technology's place in our society - the camera is no longer an object of fascination and a tool of enlightenment, but a machine for creating illusion and a cynical, self-aware object, loaded with nostalgia, irony and humour.

In 200 Fruit Boxes, Blackler presents us with 'logs' constructed from discarded market pallets. A literal title, for a literal object, once again, the work is an examination of process and processed objects. Once again, Blackler has taken an object laden with history and in his own dry, humorous and romantic manner has attempted to connect the material to its irreclaimable past.





Born in Torquay in 1986, Blackler moved to London in 2005 to study Fine Art at London Metropolitan. Since graduating he has continued his practice and been active in the East London art scene; showing regularly in London and internationally.

See more about the artist and his work at www.matt-blackler.com






Photographs courtesy of Sarah Wyld:

Gone West







200 Fruit Boxes