Matthew Weinstein

This is why true beauty never strikes us directly. The setting sun is beautiful because of all it makes us lose
                                                        -Antonin Artaud. The Theater and its Double. 1938

In his most recent paintings of suns, Matthew Weinstein creates phenomena born out of an undifferentiated pool of memory. The titles are place names, yet they are only footholds within the uncertainty of recall. The sun cannot be remembered, because it is pure heat, vitality, and danger. We cannot make it our own. We cannot even look at it. This is its beauty.

Discrete strokes of oil paint form loose horizontal lines that allow the linen and pencil marks to show through. These strokes produce glowing bands of tinted atmosphere and waves of heat. The surfaces can be read as dismantlings of continuous images, or interrupted realizations of them. In the upper center of each painting is a schematized image of the sun composed of diminishing rings of brushstrokes.

The suns are delineated by a circular border of negative space which makes the images flip back and forth between the dream life of memory and the totemic presence of the delineated circle; from intuition to contemplation. The horizontal lines of strokes can be compared to abstract handwriting which form texts that can be felt but not read. Horizon lines in the paintings suggest illusions and endless pursuits.

Our authoritarian mass media thinks for us, but Weinstein’s practice creates openings for self-generated meaning and narrative, as well as material for the consideration of the political, sensorial, and social effects of familiar images and techniques of representation. The queer navigation of personal identity has informed Weinstein’s investigation into the location of the self within a body of work. In these paintings, the self is not an image or a technique. Instead it is the imminence of meaning and being that exists within the ever shifting tones of the sky.

One of the most insidious effects of totalitarianism is the exteriorization and stagnation of our inner lives, and its transformation of our inner lives into propaganda and pure reactivity. As it is with Artaud, we need the sun to continually incinerate repressive forces as it sets, and to turn new and vital ways of being into possibilities as it rises.
This is the beauty of loss.

Matthew Weinstein has exhibited extensively in New York and Europe since the late 1980s. Known for a multi-disciplinary approach, his practice ranges from painting and sculpture to innovative computer animation. His work is deeply philosophical and idea-driven, blending technology, mythology, and pop culture to create hypnotic, often uncanny experiences.

Born and based in New York City, Weinstein earned a B.A. from Columbia University in 1987. He held his first solo exhibition at Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, in 1989. From 1994 to 2013, he exhibited at the legendary Sonnabend Gallery in New York and has recently held several solo exhibitions at Baldwin Gallery, Aspen.

Weinstein’s work has been the subject of major institutional focus, including a 2012 survey at the Mint Museum and a 2004 exhibition of his films at the Kunsthalle Wien. His work is held in numerous prestigious collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, The Pinakothek Der Moderne, Munich Germany, The Yale University Art Gallery, The Bavarian State Collection, and the Pérez Art Museum Miami, among others.

In addition to his visual practice, Weinstein is an accomplished writer and art critic whose reviews and articles have appeared in Artforum, ARTnews, and other leading publications.