Colin Matthes knows Walkers Point Center for the Arts and Milwaukee, his home when he's not exhibiting in another part of the country. Recently his satirical and politically inspired drawings, installations or prints have been shown at the Haggerty Museum of Art and the Union Art Gallery (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) during their Just Seeds site-specific installation for the gallery last year. The Just Seed organization creates and sells prints that harken to the age old, economical tradition in social protest, a theme that continually resonates with Matthes. Matthes and his fellow artist in this show, Anthony Smith, Jr. travel to Milwaukee's Walkers Point Center for the Arts in the exhibition “Sailing the Barbarous Coast,” which recently opened June 18.
Q: Could you speak to this current show and the title?
A: This same show just finished in Newton [just outside of Boston] at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Every show is slightly different, continually evolving, depending on the venue. It's interesting to see how the works evolve, some paintings stay, and some are removed. Some work for every show is site-specific, especially the installations. The piece in the hallway here was created just for this exhibition.
Q: Why did you choose the Barbary Coast?
A: The Barbary Coast was the site of the first U.S. Military overseas intervention, off shore. When I started researching this, I discovered a list [of interentions], which is in the gallery, of all the U.S. Military interventions since then, that are now listed in in chronological order. Some of the names [countries, places and dates] are repeated and show up often over the years. We keep going back and it makes you think if we really ever solve anything [by these interventions].
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Q: Do you have any upcoming exhibitions?
A: I just opened a two person show with Nicholas Lampert in Jersey City titled “Plausible Inventions.” It's about my drawings and then several objects that I've invented jumping up from the research I've done in this last show. I think they're images of the nostalgic future%u23AFoften [using] scavenger objects or common materials. I'm also playing with
scale, and the objects broadly related to the drawings. Nicholas creates machine/animal collages. I'm also still working with In:Site here in Milwaukee on a set of temporary installations for 27th to 35th Streets on Capitol Drive. But I'm unsure exactly what that is at the moment.
Q: Where are you headed to in the future?
A: I have an artist's residency in Belgium at de Scheldapen in Antwerp, so I'm headed there for one month. I'm opening up to experimenting for a little, continuing some of the work in “Plausible Inventions” with drawings and sculptures of invented objects. I worked on a surveillance camera billboard, and an improvised camera water rescue device. Objects tell us something, how we look at the world, [they can] state a position. They offer an opportunity to comment or think about the world in different ways. (“Sailing the Barbarous Coast continues through July 17. Admission is free, hours
Tuesday through Saturday, noon until five.)
