“A very particular relationship and exchange starts the moment an artist begins working on a project with Matt’s Gallery. Over the following weeks and months a conversation and dialogue unfolds that narrates and shapes the ways that the work evolves. It describes what it wishes to do, how it might look. Problems are teased apart and solutions found, the substance and intention of the work is interrogated and the details and specics of its making and staging discussed.” Richard Grayson, Present Tense, 2008
Matt’s Gallery was formed in 1979 in Robin Klassnik’s Martello Street studio at London Fields in the East end, providing the best possible conditions for the making and exhibiting art. For the past 32 years its intention has remained to allow artists the time and space to develop new ideas and, potentially, new ways of working, by offering the opportunity to explore and develop their practice and to surprise even their own expectations.
As a producing gallery, emphasis is on the critical dialogue between the gallery director and artist, as well as the network that extends beyond the gallery. The close collaboration between the artist and director Robin Klassnik informs the making and presentation of work at the gallery and its publishing programme. This ethos underpins a culture of risk-taking and innovation that has led to countless artistic successes and an artistic programme that is arguably without rival for an organisation of this size.
The gallery has a proven track record of working with and representing artists from early in their career, nurturing and developing their ideas and works over many years and assisting them to extraordinary achievements; exhibiting nationally and internationally, representing their country at international biennales, winning prestigious prizes and placing their work in many public art and museum collections.
