M HKA Ensembles

Photography, 24 x 76 cm.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp. (Inv. no. S0320).

Danny Matthys’ oeuvre includes diverse media such as photography, installation art, video, painting, assemblage and sculpture.  In his work he reconnoiters his surrounding environment.  He explores and analyzes this milieu, in the broadest sense of the word.  He scans the physical space; he studies and systematizes it.  The laying bare of structures is, however, always more important than the aesthetic characteristics.  Matthys wishes the viewer to become aware of the complexity of our ways of seeing.  From this vantage point, the work may be seen as a formalized investigation into the process of perception. 

The work Lange golfbreker [Long Breakwater] is an example of the artist's quest for a form that renders visible the time- and space dimensions of our perception.  In this way, for instance, a photograph is by definition a flat representation of a frozen moment, and thus throws open the conundrum of time and space.  Long Breakwater can be read from left to right, and thereby presents us with subtle differences in the image.  Is the camera following the breakwater over a distance in space, or is the camera still, and thus witness to the passage of time?