Into My World

‘Into My World’ was a key part of the exhibitions and installations that re-launched the Aldrich Museum after a renovation and expansion project that doubled the Museum’s existing size.

The Museum has a reputation in America of encouraging and promoting new and emerging artists to a new audience.
The participating artists were presented as bold contributors to the continuing definition of contemporary sculpture in the UK. The show set out to contrast the artists against the established YBA ‘Sensation’ generation through examining their concerns, methodologies and creative outputs.

Thematically there were several significant common themes and concerns that were critically examined:

·Role of making and craft mediated by critical appreciation of theory
·Subversion and reinterpretation of formal qualities of 20th century art
·Altered states of reality implied by fractured narratives
·Exploration of the relationship between mass culture and of nature
·Nostalgic references and fondness for past art genres and technology
·Exploration of Utopian and dystopian mythologies

My own contribution to the show comprised an installation work using black light to activate fluorescent nylon flock covered sculptural shapes. The hypnotic affect made reference to psychedelia and pop mythology.

The catalogue for ‘Into My World’ generated new essays by Aldrich curator Jessica Hough and Stephan Hepworth which critically re-examined the current development of British Sculpture and its forebears in the framework of an American perspective.

Matt Franks was born in Yorkshire in 1970. After graduating from Goldsmith's College with an MA Fine Art in 2000, his first solo show 'transcendent plastic infinite' - for which he inverted traditional floor-based sculpture by placing it on the ceiling - was held at Tate Britain's Art Now space in 2002. Between 2001 - 03, his work was shown as part of 'Tailsliding', a British Council international touring exhibition featuring twelve young British artists 'currently creating eclectic work within the conventions of painting and sculpture'; for 'Into My World' (2004), a showcase for recent British sculpture at the newly re-opened Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Connecticut, USA, Franks was invited to take part in the associated Weir Farm Residency programme to produce a specially commissioned new body of work for the exhibition.
Other recent exhibitions include 'Metropolis Rise: New Art from London' (ICA, London; Shanghai and Beijing, 2006), a major touring show supported by the British Council and Arts Council England; '8x8x8' at The Soap Factory, Minneapolis, London and New York (2006); and the Contemporary Art Society's annual selling exhibition, 'ARTfutures 2007', Bloomberg Space, London.

Franks' sculptural installations often feature assemblages of neon-coloured perspex and large, smoothly-shaped and hand carved blocks of styrofoam to produce bizarre and humorous forms. His first public installation for an exterior site in London, 'Fooooom!!!' - a three metre high, white exploding cloud - was recently on show at The Economist Plaza, London, commissioned by the Contemporary Art Society (24 January - 9 March 2007). Matt Franks is represented by Houldsworth Gallery, London.