Matthias Neumann
Biography
Matthias Neumann was born in Germany, where he received his diploma in architecture in 1999. He has traveled extensively and has lived in Ireland, Canada, Italy and Germany before relocating to New York City in 2000. He was co-founder of the interdisciplinary design group normaldesign in 2002, which he has been leading as a full-time design practice since 2004. His work focuses on the correlation of designed space with its aesthetic, social and idiomatic implications, and within this context of a wider conception of architectural space he has been continuously engaged both with the academic and artistic realm through teaching, production and collaboration.
The architectural production of normaldesign has enjoyed international recognition in publications, exhibitions and through a number of successful competition entries, such as the selection as finalist for the WTC memorial competition, the winning entry to the Aviation Museum in Krakow, Poland, in conjunction with the architectural biennial in Krakow, and the recently won competition for a center for contemporary African Art near Cape Town, South Africa.
Matthias Neumann has been and continues to be engaged in a number of artistic collaborations, most recently with choreographer Ella Ben-Aharon and video artist Adi Shniderman through a series of site-specific installations/performances investigating relations of body space (dance), virtual space (video) and physical space (architecture). The collaboration was conceived during the Makor artist residency at the 92nd Street Y in 2006.
Individual artistic projects in the extended field of architectural and public spacial engagement include a site-specific installation at Broadway Gallery (home base II) in 2007 and the work-in-progress “neutral city” to be finalized at Mac Dowell Colony in May 2008.
Creative Process
The installation for home base II at Broadway Gallery addresses a contemporary nomadic notion of home, where an accumulation of experiences in varied and disconnected places, with people of different origin, background, desires and social networks constitute a comfort-zone and nourishment of a different kind. While memory and the everyday remain intrinsically tied to a phenomenological spatial experience and the specifically local, it is the sum of a seemingly disconnected multitude that de-spatializes this set of personal reference points, affording refuge in the iconic image and the modes of networking infrastructure. This is home to the urban and holiday jet-set.
Five generic white wood moldings frame the five ridge lines for a generic and iconographically easily recognizable house shape within the project space of the gallery, traced with a continuous black rubber tubing. This generic form is distorted by site specific conditions such as an existing pilaster on the one side which becomes the supporting structure and a large interior window on the other side containing Katie Down's sound work to which the installation opens itself in a V-shaped plan. The installation thus regains a specificity within its generic context.
I extend my special thanks to my project assistant Michael Loughlin for executing the installation.
Contact: www.normaldesign.com