Artists

Matti Braun Born in 1968 in Berlin, Germany | Lives and works in Köln

Portrait

Matti Braun

Matti Braun
Photo: Stefan Schilling, Köln

Matti Braun’s inquiry examines cultural misunderstandings in his installations, paintings, objects, and photography and asks the question: what happens when objects, things, and traditional skills are placed into other cultures and processed?

The mixture of tradition and myth as well as the creation of cultures as a mesh of different traditions is an important aspect of his work. He does this by rearranging the forms and contents of the original context in a new way so that other, independent meanings arise.

Braun developed a presentation from his latest exhibition,Ave Vala(2012), for MADE IN GERMANY ZWEI. The title prompts numerous associations. “Ave” could be the abbreviation for “avenue”; but “Ave” is also the Latin word used for “Hail” or “Greetings”; not only that, it sounds like the title of an old Finnish national epic,Kalevala. The pictures on display on raw silk and silk that have developed out of his interest in foreign cultures—Javanese batik, for example—open up further relationships. The textures of silk painting, through their characteristic style and application of paint, are reminiscent of the abstract painting of Art Informel and the pictures become, at the same time, images that evoke associations capable of imagining mystical worlds and landscapes.

Education

1989 - 1996 Studium an Studium an der Staatlichen Hochschule für Bildende Kunst Städelschule, Frankfurt /Main und der Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig

Exhibitions (selection)

2012 Ave Vala, Galerie BQ, Berlin
2011 Kadis Art Foundation, Paris
2010 Mental Archaeology, Kunstverein NĂĽrnberg
Matti Braun: Salo, Kunstverein Braunschweig
Next Generation, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen
2009 Zeichen setzen, Kunstverein Bonn
Matti Braun Kola, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz
2008 Matti Braun: ÖZURFA, Museum Ludwig Köln und Museion, Bozen
2007 Matti Braun, LOTA, Galerie Esther Schipper, Berlin