Philip Metten

In the past years Philip Metten has made large scale sculptural installations that explicitly engage in a dialogue with architecture, starting with a bar in Antwerp (BAR, 2013, BE), the scenography for an exhibition at Extra City Kunsthal in Antwerp (The Corner Show, 2015, BE), the cladding of the façade of Kai Matsumiya Gallery in New York (153. Stanton, 2015, US), a mobile screening dispositive (CINEMA, 2017), and a restaurant in Borgerhout (ESSEN, 2020, BE). In his exploration of the functional potential of sculpture Metten doubles the material and conceptual regime of sculpture with the practical and social conditions of an everyday program.

His most recent work consists of threedimensional collages, made of both snippets of paper and remnants of old and abandoned models in cardboard. Glued inside foam wrapping elements the artist has scavenged on the street, the diverging images these works conjure up range from Mesopotamian edifices to hi-tech cities, art deco ornaments to sci-fi vessels.

Wouter Davidts