Artist Statement – “Used Fiction”

Taking a page from Charles Bukowski and a line from Tom Waits, this work delves into a narrative, which has its roots in the everyman, addressing aspects of the underbelly of society, with characters on the fringes of culture. Inspired aesthetically by Japanese and European film noir of the 50’s and 60’s, these narratives explore the moments of intrigue when the fabric of mundane existence is torn away. Through a set of threatening or inexplicable encounters, the characters and their counterparts move though an urban landscape, participants in an ambiguous narrative and caught in the moments of pause between action and reaction.

Using a cinematic format, these pieces reference the film noir and comic books that inspire them. The enigmatic relationship between juxtaposing spatial elements and the narrative figure is explored, using the urban landscape as both setting and aesthetic component. These atmospheric portrayals describe scenes where the characters and their environs are caught in the fabric of a flash fiction.

This most current work uses a spray paint stencil technique for the figures that is rooted in graffiti, but made exceptionally more complex, incorporating up to seven unique stenciled layers to create a multi-tonal effect. These figures are combined with cut vinyl environments, both to take advantage of differing surface textures and to define and isolate the figure within its architectural surrounds. The vinyl and enamel spray paint are grounded on a field of roughed silver leaf which conceptually connects the work to its photographic roots, suggesting a deteriorated nitrate film, tin type or aging silver print.



Matt Haffner

Curatorial Statement - “Serial City”

Architecture must be recognized today as a social system: a new economic condition and a psycho-political experience. - Krzysztof Wodiczko
It is a known fact that we do not see with our eyes but rather with our brain. - Robert Smithson

Place is mythmaking. But whose stories are being told and by whom? Every place is mediated by some degree of authority. When intervening temporarily in the public sphere, we experiment with the unspoken politics of space. What better way to engage in this exercise than through narratives that entice our imaginations? Not dictated, linear narratives, but an artistic practice that opens up new spaces for experience and discourse.

Atlanta photographer Matt Haffner re-engages with his street practice in Atlanta Celebrates Photography’s 2006 public art program. While exploring the city for potential sites, I was struck at how buildings and their scale did not match their corresponding images in my head, nor did their appearances generally coincide with how I had verbally constructed them in conversation. In other words, the city I lived in was not always congruent with its empirical evidence. Haffner’s wheat pasted photographic scenes intervene, therefore, not only in the built environment, but in our own constructed spaces, slipping quietly around corners, scaling ignored architectural features, disappearing into the layered surfaces of forgotten walls and reappearing transiently between our assumptions about a city that exists only experientially...discursively.

By bringing Matt Haffner’s street work to the fore of ACP’s annual investigation into photography, the work is seen, not in the context of a gallery, museum or specialized visual art venue with its own set of rules and authoritative codes, but within the context of the audience itself. The manner in which Haffner’s characters can at times surprise or elude us, so it is with the occupation and performance of space for us all. This kind of creative practice will always have currency because it opens us up to possibility and makes an impact on what and how we are able to perceive.

Joey Orr, curator of ACP’s 2006, annual Public Art Project

Matthew Haffner

b. Akron, OH 1969

EDUCATION:


1998 MFA, Tyler School of Art, Temple University
1995 BFA, University of Akron

SOLO EXHIBITIONS:


2007 Lyons Wier Ortt, (New York), "Used Fiction"
2006 Rialto Center for the Arts ( Atlanta ), “Selected Works”
2005 Galerie MC ( Atlanta ), “Project for a Revolution”
2004 Forward Arts Foundation - Swan Coach house,( Atlanta ), “Scenes From a Hero’s Tale”
2003 Youngblood Gallery, ( Atlanta ), “Subterfuge” ShedSpace (Atlanta)
1998 Temple Gallery, (Philadelphia), “Simulacra”
1996 Wheathervane Center for the Arts (Akron), “Selected Photographs”
1995 Akron Center Art Gallery, “Urban Experiences”
1994 Universalist Unitarian Church ( Kent ), Untitled Exhibition
1993 Katherine Folk Gallery ( Akron ), “Crowdscapes” ( spring) Katherine Folk Gallery ( Akron ), “Selected Photographs” ( fall )

GROUP EXHIBITIONS:


2005 Forward Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia Photography, Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia 100, Woodruf Arts Center, Atlanta
2004 Scope Art Fair, London
AAF Contemporary Art Fair, New York
Scope Art Fair, Los Angeles
Cinema Complex, Rialto Theatre, Atlanta
Reading Between the Lanes, Spruill Center for the Arts, Atlanta
Analog, Click - Click, Temple Gallery, Philadelphia
2003 ArtSpot Gallery, “Dekalb Ave.” , Atlanta
Youngblood Gallery, “SK8 or Die”, Atlanta
Suntrust Biennial, “Atlanta Artists: Gallery Selections”
2002 Youngblood Gallery, in conjunction with Atlanta Celebrates Photography
1999 Temple Gallery, (Philadelphia), “Place of Memory”
1998 Tyler Gallery, Tyler School of Art, “Group Photography Exhibition”, PA
1997 Temple Gallery, Tyler School of Art, “Fourteen”, Philadelphia
1996 Emily Davis Gallery (Akron), “Intimate Revelations Group show”
Wheathervane Center for the Arts, “Street Scenes”
Shippley School (Philadelphia), “Tyler Graduate Photography Exhibition”
1995 Fine Arts Center (Lubbock, Texas), “Illuminance ‘95”
1994 Cleveland Center for the Contemporary Arts, “Juried Photography Exhibition”