Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org, Reality is Overrated, 2010. Installation view.
EVA and FRANCO MATTES aka 0100101110101101.org
Reality is Overrated
May 15 - June 19, 2010
Postmasters Gallery is pleased to present Reality is Overrated by Brooklyn based artists Eva and Franco Mattes aka
0100101110101101.ORG. The exhibition will include several new net-based performances as well as their very first
work together, a project that has been kept secret for 14 years. The show will open on May 15th and will be on view until June 19th.
The works in this exhibition engage in charged, high resonance issues of crime, sex, war, and death.
What we see in Reality is Overrated is a slow process of disintegration of some of our core beliefs about art and
culture: the need for material objects, the authority of institutions, the uniqueness of an artwork and the distinction
between reality and simulation. Museums have been mysteriously robbed and art objects become dust gathering, obsolete
commodities. In order to get real and spontaneous reactions the artists are looking for their audience outside of traditional
art spaces, confronting groups of unaware viewers.
In their work Eva and Franco Mattes manipulate video games and Internet technologies creating a permanent state of
insecurity by blurring borders between reality and fiction, art and confrontation, intent and its often unexpected
consequences.
For No Fun Franco Mattes simulated committing suicide in a public webcam-based chat room. Thousands of
random people watched while he was hanging from the ceiling, swinging slowly, for hours. The video documentation of the
performance, which was just banned from YouTube, is an unbelievable, at times very disturbing, sequence of reactions:
some laugh, some are completely unmoved, some insult the supposed corpse, some take pictures with their mobiles.
Notably, out of several thousand people, only one called the police.
In Freedom we are faced with a live performance set within the popular first-person shooter videogame
Counter Strike. Here the artist, Eva Mattes, is refusing to accomplish the basic role of the game: kill the enemy. She
instead tries to convince the other players to save her because she is "trying to make an artwork". The result is the
performer being endlessly and brutally killed and abused by the other players.
The artists' earliest work Stolen Pieces is shown here for the very first time : over a period of two years (1995-1997)
Eva and Franco stole dozens of fragments of works of art - masterpieces by famous artists, such as Kandinsky, Duchamp,
Beuys, Rauschenberg, Warhol, and Koons - from the most renowned museums of contemporary art in the United States
and in Europe. For 14 years they have never revealed its existence. Besides the fragments themselves, the exhibition features
a video, shot with a hidden camera, documenting their last heist. Making a mockery of our belief in the sacred nature of art,
this controversial work is an open question: where does the value of a work of art lie? Are objects overrated?
The title of this show refers to the actual human condition in which the perception of reality is more and more filtered by the
media. Humanity abandoned reality to live in front of screens, concerned only with media attention disguised as communication,
and narcissistically hoping to be the protagonist of this spectacle, while chatting compulsively. For their recent works Eva
and Franco went down the dark side of the Internet to meet this humanity.
All the works in this show can also be seen online on the artists' website.
This is the Matteses third solo exhibition at Postmasters. Their work has also been show at Performa, P.S.1, the
Walker Art Center, Manifesta, ARoS Kunstmuseum, The National Art Museum of China, the New Museum and the Venice
Biennale. They have been recently invited by Marina Abramovic to perform at Plymouth Art Center, UK.
A monograph on their work has just been published by Charta.
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Reality is Overrated installation view |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Reality is Overrated installation view |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Reality is Overrated installation view |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org No Fun 2010 - online performance screeen shot single channel video with color and sound 15:46 minutes edition of 3 + AP |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org No Fun 2010 - online performance screeen shot single channel video with color and sound 15:46 minutes edition of 3 + AP |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org No Fun 2010 - online performance screeen shot single channel video with color and sound 15:46 minutes edition of 3 + AP |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org No Fun 2010 - online performance screeen shot single channel video with color and sound 15:46 minutes edition of 3 + AP |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org No Fun 2010 - online performance screeen shot single channel video with color and sound 15:46 minutes edition of 3 + AP |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org No Fun 2010 -online performance screeen shot single channel video with color and sound 15:46 minutes edition of 3 + AP |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org No Fun 2010 - online performance screeen shot single channel video with color and sound 15:46 minutes edition of 3 + AP |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Medication Valse 2010 online performance performed in Second Life and Performa09, New York single channel video with color and sound 9:48 minutes edition 3 + AP |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org I know that it's all a state of mind2010 online performance performed in Second Life and Plymouth Art Center single channel video with color and sound 9:48 minutes edition 3 + AP |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Freedom 2010 - online performance single channel video with color and sound 14:14 minutes edition 3 + AP |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces 1995-1997 - installation view mixed media objects and video documention of the final performance with color and sound 5:00 minutes unique installation |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces 1995-1997 - screen shot video documention of the final performance with color and sound 5:00 minutes unique installation |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces 1995-1997 - screen shot video documention of the final performance with color and sound 5:00 minutes unique installation |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces 1995-1997 - screen shot video documention of the final performance with color and sound 5:00 minutes unique installation |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces 1995-1997 mixed media objects unique installation |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces (from Edward Kienholz) 1995-1997 mixed media objects |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces (from Edward Kienholz) 1995-1997 original work |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces (from Cesar) 1995-1997 mixed media object |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces (from Cesar) 1995-1997 original work |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces (from Claes Oldenburg) 1995-1997 mixed media object |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces (from Duchamp) 1995-1997 original work |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces (from Duchamp) 1995-1997 Eva with the original work |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces (from Jeff Koons) 1995-1997 mixed media object |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces (from Jeff Koons) 1995-1997 Franco with the original work |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces(from Jean Tinguely) 1995-1997 mixed media object |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces (from Joseph Beuys) 1995-1997 mixed media object |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces (from Joseph Beuys) 1995-1997 original work with Franco |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces (from Robert Rauschenberg) 1995-1997 mixed media object |
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Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.org Stolen Pieces (from Tom Wesselmann) 1995-1997 mixed media object |
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Eva and Franco with a work by Karel Appel, 1995-1997 original work with Eva and Franco |