Mary Mattingly – Robert Mann Gallery – ‘Nomadographies’

At the Robert Mann Gallery, from April 2 until May 23, you will have the chance to explore new possibilities of living turned against consumerism and pollution , through this rare, beautiful, and pure work of Mary Mattingly : "Nomadographies".

As the title says, this show talks about a graphic expression of nomadism, and makes us understand this ideal of living in deep relation with nature.
Mary Mattingly travels a lot: she draws upon them her inspiration, and brings us a sort of travelogue, between the documentary and the dream, where she succeeds to embody the idea of biosphere.

Landscape photographs of the far north with half submerged boats, portraits of people in a complete osmosis with a magnificent landscape. A recurrent object is this tall pile of cardboards attached by a cord, traveling sometime on the shoulder of a man in the desert, or on a boat on a lake, and contrasting with the landscape... a metaphor of the travel. With pure and vivid colors, characters featuring people who look like there are coming from another dimension, it is a kind a fresh air that we breathe in. A true peace is emanating from this series of images.

Apart from the photographs, we discover one installation “Everything you own including the shirt off my back” which retakes this same pattern, the pile of cardboard boxes bound with bungee cord, but this time attached to a man bicycling, with only one wheel on the ground. The balance is incredible, it really feels like he is landing from… but from where? a world imagined by Marry Mattingly, a world of recycled objects,  of non consumerism, wild globalization. where the simple is synonymous of grace.

An other fundamental piece is the waterpod model, an object resembling to a sphere, which is linked to a very important project. The Waterpod™ Project is a floating eco-habitat which is a sustainable navigable space, conceptualized and designed by the artist as a model for new form of living and DIY technologies. In May, the boat will start his course among the waters of New York Harbor. The project can be tracked on the website. A real and deep reflexion about our society is here proposed, and we can only admire her courage and determination to find other solution of living while the world's balance is collapsing.

“The Threaty of Nomadolgy”, written by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, explained how nomadism was linked to a war-machine. The work of Mary Mattingly could also be seen as her own war-machine, and this project would  thus embody her own vanishing point from this society of consumerism, designed with grace and cleverness.




Nomadographies  is  Mattingly's  second solo exhibition at the gallery. Most recently she  was shortlisted for the  inaugural   Prix Pictet  and  had  a  two-person exhibition with  Mle  Kjaergaard at  Standpoint  in  London.  Mattingly  is   also  included in the forthcoming  exhibition  "Trouble in  Paradise" :  Examining  Discord  Between  Nature  and  Society at the Tucson Museum of Art. In 2008 she was included in group exhibitions at the Palais de Tolkyo, the Neuberger Museum, and the Tessaloniki Museum of Photography.


[Visuals: Above : Mary Mattingly, In the Navel of the Moon, 2008, 30 x 30 inches, edition of 5, chromogenic, dye-coupler print mounted to dibond. , Courtesy Robert Mann Gallery.. Below : Mary Mattingly, Everything you own including the shirt off my back, 2009, dimensions variable, mixed media installation  Courtesy Robert Mann Gallery]