"A soundtrack of a 16th-century Lutheran hymn and peals of church bells create an unresolvable conflict with the small photographs trapped behind glass on a low shelf in Rene Matic's installation. The voices of Nina Simone and bell hooks are dragged from the ether, along with the chants of trans rights activists and commuters calling for a free Palestine. Rihanna sings Lift Me Up a cappella"
"Here's an elderly man in hospital, then lipstick and cigarettes and a page from a remembrance book: Dad, Our Hero, VIP, Legend reads the dedication. All these scenes, I take it, are from Matic's life. It is all a mix of the personal and the political. I think of Nan Goldin and of a life being lived and documented. The artist, 28, displays their affinities in an installation that feels at once rich and sparse, restrained and confessional."
The Turner Prize exhibition at Cartwright Hall in Bradford features Rene Matic's installation, where photography, sound, printed banners and found objects converge. A soundtrack mixes a 16th-century Lutheran hymn, church bells, Nina Simone, bell hooks, trans rights chants and Rihanna, generating conflicting registers. Small photographs of clubs, marches, graffiti, family scenes and hospital moments sit behind glass, pairing intimate memory with public protest. A sagging cotton drop-cloth reads NO PLACE FOR VIOLENCE/FOR VIOLENCE, while shelves of black dolls observe the space. The work navigates mixed-race, gender-fluid and working-class identities, interrogating nationhood, belonging and the boundary between private life and political action. The installation feels both restrained and confessional, evoking documentary intimacy.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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