‘I keep on bringing objects from one place to another’: Rodrigo Matheus solo show at Ibid. London

As we arrive to visit Rodrigo Matheus at Ibid. London, we find him in the process of installing One – Entre – in the Middle, his upcoming exhibition at the gallery. There are several souvenir – like objects spread around the space, waiting to be placed in one of his two new site-specific installations. These objects, as well as all others which compose the works on show, were collected mainly in flea markets and second-hand shops between the three cities the artist has been sharing his time for the past few years: born in Sao Paulo in 1974, Matheus completed a masters in Sculpture at London’s Royal College of Art in 2013, and is currently based in Paris, where he has a studio at the Cité des Arts. ‘Due to my intense contact with these cities’, the artist explains, ‘I keep on bringing objects from one place to another. For example, in Sao Paulo I find things with a sort of cheapness that I will never find in Europe. So every time I go to Brazil, I come back with a suitcase full of stuff, which at first might seem useless. I also brought a lot of things from Paris to London, including things that I brought to Paris during my move from London. So somehow this exhibition contains elements from this shift’. Noteworthy, the title of the show alludes to this in-betweenness currently experienced by the artist in his life.

 

Though Matheus has always nourished a flaneur practice to some extent – he is himself an avid walker – the appropriation of found objects has intensified in his recent production. He tells us that it’s on the streets that he finds most of his inspiration these days, observing daily life rather than visiting art-oriented spaces. Accordingly, there is little separation between his personal life and his art practice, as he works from home and doesn’t embrace a rigid routine. It would be hard to keep one anyways: this year only, he has presented a solo show at Galeria Fortes Vilaça in Sao Paulo, and has created new works for exhibitions at the Palais de Tokyo hors les mûrs, in Lyon, and the 19th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil, in Sao Paulo, besides having participated in several group shows worldwide. We ask him if he always produces having a specific exhibition or project in mind, to which he replies, with a hint of gloom, ‘it’s very rare nowadays that I have time to develop something out of the blue, that will be with me for a while. What it happens is that I produce a lot of trash, or fat, and somehow I’ll develop that fat that I’m putting aside today in the future’. And continues, about his process, ‘every time I finish a work, I try to go back in time and trace from where I have taken that idea. But its always so intuitive that, when I realise, I just lost the thread from where I started the work. Sometimes I have the intention to do one thing, and it results into something completely different. So things are kind of floating, like in a soup. The feeling I have is that the more I try to control the work, the more it evades me!’, he chuckles.

 

For One – Entre – in the Middle, Matheus has created a few sculptures – some displayed on the wall, others hanging from the ceiling – as well as a large wall installation and an equally large ceiling installation. The latter makes use of the gallery’s beautiful skylight roof, and consists of a net filled with objects such as reading glasses and a horseshoe. Reflecting his characteristic process of responding to specific architectures, he states that when he first saw the space, he had the skylight as a target. And goes further, ‘at the moment – I might change my mind tomorrow – but at the moment I believe my favourite piece is the ceiling installation. I think it’s a work that somehow brings lots of memories: that football, standing on the top of the net, all the other things that I’ll still include… I believe it brings so many scenes that one have seen before… It has this kind of deja vu that is quite intriguing to me’.

 

After our conversation has ended, while walking out of the gallery we stumble into some boxes that are on the floor. They fall, and we see they contain bathroom wires – purchased from any ordinary hardware shop in London or elsewhere – which will be utilised in one of the works. ‘You see’, he tells us with a smile, ‘those are the kind of places that I go to these days’.

October 12, 2015