The exhibitions Urgent Conversations: Athens–Antwerp and Urgent Conversations: Antwerp – Athens are a collaboration between EMST and M HKA, a theoretical and visual dialogue, based on works from the collections of both museums, which includes more than 70 works structured in 22 topics.   

28.04.2017 - 07.01.2018        

M HKA, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen - Leuvenstraat 32, 2000 Antwerpen

EMST, National Museum of Contemporary Art - Kallirrois Avenue & Amvr. Frantzi Str., Athens 11743

Danny Matthys

Golf, St-Malo, 1975
Photography , 23 x 53 cm

Danny Matthys’ oeuvre includes diverse media such as photography, installation art, video, painting, assemblage and sculpture.  In his work he reconnoiters his surrounding environment.  He explores and analyzes this milieu, in the broadest sense of the word.  He scans the physical space; he studies and systematizes it.  The laying bare of structures is, however, always more important than the aesthetic characteristics.  Matthys wishes the viewer to become aware of the complexity of our ways of seeing.  From this vantage point, the work may be seen as a formalized investigation into the process of perception. 

The piece Wave, Saint Malo plays with the apparent contradiction between photography as a snapshot and the capturing of a time interval.  Looking at the work of Danny Matthys can best be described as a 'reading' process.  It invites a left-to-right reading, like a text.  Then we see an oncoming wave that engulfs a palette.  But if we change the direction of our reading, the series becomes much less unequivocal.  The readability of Danny Matthys' work is always paired with an awareness of structures.