Adi Matei
artist in residence September 2013, Romania /
Artist's statement
My recent works are focused on the concept of the blind frame in the metaphysical, the black and white fields of the moving pictures. I have worked with ideology related ideas in order to imagine and shape a love dance between the brutal past and the fragile future. The concept of fragility emphasizes all my researches. Objects or video, drawings or installations, they all gravitate on fragility and power related details. The conceptual layers are very important in my practice as they stand together within the mixture of politics and poetics. This can be noticed in the way of perceiving the reality trough short video stories. Recently I found that I want the concept of web interactivity to guide my artistic view. In my approach, the feeling of freedom and color is slowly making its way inside the remains of the post-ideological nightmare. During my stay in Vienna, I want to link the idea of fragility with the concept of network sensitiveness. To focus on the interactivity as a touchable nervous system and less on the promises of the past. I also want to change the way in which I develop a project, to rely more on the ephemeral ideas inside a conceptual layer than on the rigid outline that I usually follow.
Biography
Adi Matei was born in 1980 in Galati, Romania. He lives and works in Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca.
After receiving a B.A. at the Cluj-Napoca University of Art and Design from 2000 to 2004, he undertook a M.B.A graduate program at the same University from 2004 to 2006. Adi Matei received a scholarship at L’Ecole Regionale des Beaux-Arts in Nantes, France in 2004, participated in the Bucharest Biennale 3 - Bucharest Biennale for Contemporary Art, Bucharest in 2008 and he was the recipient of the 2010 Henkel Prize Romania, with the video: Tower (Cigarettes box plastic wrapper tower collapse), awarded by the Henkel foundation.
His work has been the subject of a number of exhibitions, including the The Map: Navigating the Present – Bildmuseet, Umea, Sweden in 2008, Die welten neuzumachen – Ferula space, Sibiu in 2009, or Artist survival kit at the galerie Jan Dhaese in Gent in 2010. His video’s were shown in screenings around Europe including the Land reclamation, Paris, Projection Espace APR, Berlin, Videoholica Festival Varna and Temp d’images Festival, Cluj-Napoca in 2010. He also was part of the Oberbayerische Bezirk Residency in Freising, Germany in 2008 and at the Centre for contemporary art Ujazdowski Castle residency, Warsaw, Poland in 2011. In the summer of 2011 he participated in the I AM HURT exhibition at the gallerie Jan Colle in Gent, Belgium and in the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) artist-in-residence in Paris, France. In 2012 he received the Constantin Brancusi Bourse at Cite des Arts Paris, participated in IN OUT Festival in Gdansk, The III Moscow International Biennale for Young Art and realized his first solo show MOON SHUFFLE at Galeria de Arta Contemporana Sibiu. He also took part in the Krinzinger Projekte Residency in Petomihalyfa, Hungary and Kulturkontakt AIR Program in Vienna, Austria.
Downloads
Adi_Matei_portfolio.pdf (pdf, 1.8 mb)