M HKA Ensembles

Photography, 23 x 64 cm.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp.

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 Paaltje bij lager gelegen weiland [Poles at lower lying pasture] is part of a series looking into the potentialities and the limitations of (Polaroid) photography and our perception.  Both the medium and the title are used by the artist as neutrally as possible.  The formal sensing of the borders of photography is reflected here in following a pasture's physical boundaries.  In this way the traditional differentiation between form and content evaporates.  Moreover, the content of Matthys' work is found precisely in this making visible by way of the medium-imposed form.