proxy gallery

PROXY Gallery is delighted to present the solo exhibition " Crystal Meth Napoleon "by artist Matthew Carter.

Two glitter portraits: One of Napoleon (based on Jacques Louis David) and one of Nazi Reinhard Heydrich are placed at an angle so the necessarily frontal view of the Proxy gallery only allows us to gaze at the portraits from a skewed perspective. In front of them, and from the top of the gallery space, hangs a small yellow pad page with the artist’s scribbled notes-to-self such as “keep it simple,” “clarity = the key” and other deep thoughts. On the floor, mylar reflects the paintings while commercial paper with the Fredrix canvas logo serves as wallpaper.

Carter consciously evinces a hallucinatory and over-the-top defiance in his choice of materials and references. These, and the subversive implications of “Crystal Meth” in the title point to one of the central themes that has structured his work for some time now: that of megalomaniacal delusion and the kind of delirious transgressive state required by the artist to represent it.

Anyone who has read Arendt or Adorno, or, for that matter, Foucault, knows that conformity and perversity are both aspects of the Normal. Normality raises its ugly head everywhere; knowing this, and in spite of it, Carter has constructed an opposition which drives his passion and organizes his production.