Sculptures that reflect the material and immaterial aspects of iPhone chic.

The economy may be down the drain and spending power on the decline but object fetishism is still in full swing. iPhone chic reigns supreme. The most popular products in the current information age are laptops, tablets, scanners, smartphones and other digital, communicative machines. The artists in Material World process these contemporary consumer goods and industrial materials into assemblages in which objects and materials seemingly unrelated are melted together. The shiny, sterile appearance of the sculptures reflects not only the aesthetics of the latest products but also those of the consumer goods manufacturing machines.

In the same way that the industrial finish of consumer goods hides any trace of human input in the production process, the artist too is absent in these artworks. The sculptures seem to stress the dominance of the thing above man. This object-oriented ontology, a recent tendency within philosophy, equates human beings with other things. These and related philosophical thoughts lie at the basis of a number of the works. Here the artists use objects to explore the essence of things. Intentionally artworks that are formally alike have been selected and the result is a cool and aloof atmosphere of both the artworks and of the exhibition as a whole. Both the artist and the spectator are subordinate to the thing. This is another reason why it is difficult to distinguish the artworks of the different makers.

Material World came into being in collaboration with artist David Jablonowski. Conversations about his work led to a group exhibition with artists who focus the value and significance of materials and objects in the current late capitalism.