Gathering is delighted to announce phantoms all around me, Matthias Groebel’s debut solo exhibition in the UK curated by Hannes Schmidt, opens Thursday 14 March 6-8pm.
Groebel produced the works on view between 2003 and 2006, with the distinctive machine-assisted painting technique he began to develop in 1989 using computer-guided airbrush dispensers and repurposed electronic parts to transfer video footage onto canvas. The footage used as source material in phantoms all around me was captured by the artist in Whitechapel in the early 2000s, with a focus on Tower House - a “working man’s hostel.” Built in response to the housing crisis of the 1880s, Tower House was being converted into upscale flats at the time of recording. The phantoms of Groebel’s title are manifold: as he traces the disintegration of Tower House’s social objectives, he gestures toward the capital-driven cycle of ‘urban renewal’ that transforms countless London neighbourhoods beyond recognition. Like the nameless faces drawn from late-night television that inhabit Groebel’s earlier paintings, the subjects of the Whitechapel works appear to be one flicker of screen static away from disappearance.