Catalogue > At random

Matthew Verdon

Water finds its own level

Vidéo | hdv | couleur | 10:17 | Australie | 2013

The work questions the conflation of abstractions such as economic growth and finance with organic natural processes. We hear of flows of capital and liquid assets, but can such dematerialised entities be equated with the movement of water that inherently acts under the influence of natural laws and gravity? Here nature is utilised in an attempt to give monetary concepts and mechanisms a form of naturalised comprehensibility, but perhaps both operate in fundamentally differing ways. This is highlighted in the work through featuring varying uses of running water in relation to accumulation and change over time. Ranging from a biomorphic corporate bank building surrounded by traditional water gardens, to cotton irrigation and fluctuating commodity prices, to a subversion of a Richard Serra’s 1968 film “Hand catching lead”, natural, historical and cultural references are appropriated in order to create a narrative that examines an equation that seems somewhat ubiquitous today.

2013 Les Rencontres Internationales, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany Ghost Town, Saison Video, Lille, France 2012 Les Rencontres Internationales, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France PVM-2130, Furnished Space, London, UK Oriel Davies Open, Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown, Powys, UK The Lewton Bus: Coming Soon & Conditions, Shortwave Cinema & Vitrine Gallery, London, UK 2011 Open, New Gallery, London, UK Video Guerrilha, Sao Paolo, Brazil Hors Pistes, Pompidou Center, Paris, France 2010 All that glitters is NOT institution, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK Pop-up Show, The Old Police Station, London, UK Art / Value / Currency Part 2, Eastern District, Brooklyn, New York, USA Images Contre Nature, Theatre des Chartreux, Marseille, France agency, The Agency Gallery, London, UK Saison Video, Espace Croise, Lille, France The Pursuit of Happiness, Arsenal Gallery, Poznan, Poland 2009 Art / Value / Currency, The Pigeon Wing, London, UK The Pursuit of Happiness, This Is Not A Gateway Festival, Kobi Nazrul Centre, London, UK 2007 Visual Deflections, The Roxy Screen, London, UK Punk, Ada Street Gallery, London, UK & Rote Flora / Galerie Lecocon, Hamburg, Germany