With the duo exhibition JAZZ. by Rene Matić (*1997, Great Britain) and Oscar Murillo (*1986, Colombia), the Kunsthalle Wien has achieved a curatorial highlight. Turner Prize winner Oscar Murillo, who has already been successful on the international art scene for a decade, will be showing his large-format paintings and delicate works on paper in Vienna for the first time; Murillo's works will enter into a dialog with those of Rene Matić, who are also already represented in renowned collections such as the Tate Britain and the Fondation Louis Vuitton. Matić will be presented with four new works commissioned for the exhibition - two films, a photo series and a sound work - as well as an existing wall installation in JAZZ.
Matić and Murillo generously share their thoughts, feelings and practices with others, while remaining committed to the principle that "everyone has a right to opacity". As the philosopher and poet Édouard Glissant argues in his book Poétique de la Relation (Poetics of Relation), transparency - through its attempts to define and clarify - overlooks those aspects of the self that are elusive or even incomprehensible. Opacity, on the other hand, simply accepts that not everything that constitutes us can be fully understood.
Oscar Murillo, Photo: Tim Bowditch, Courtesy of the artists, © Oscar Murillo
And although Matić and Murillo's practices seem to complement each other, important aspects overlap. For example, the gestural, action painting-like painting that is often at the center of Murillo's work is similar to the use of dance and dancing in Matić's videos; both share a spontaneous, light-hearted and improvisational approach. The artists use intuition in their working processes and production, a calculated intuition - one could also speak of strategically deployed intuition. In addition, both artists succeed in carving out a space of independence in a cultural context that seeks to classify and smooth out everything and everyone. Occupying such a space first requires an act of disaffiliation (also a Glissantian term) in order to break away from established traditions and create a space for non-continuous, novel ways of thinking, and then to reformulate one's own (art) historical narratives and genealogies. This applies both intellectually and to interpersonal relationships. An aspect at the heart of both artists' practices, because in many ways Murillo and Matic's fundamental (or overriding) sentiment is love.
March 14 to July 28, 2024
https://kunsthallewien.at
Rene Matić, Photo: Julien Tell, Courtesy Rene Matić
