Money never sleeps: Matúš Maťátko and Filip Sabol

 

Galéria NBS;

Národná banka Slovenska - ground floor

Imricha Karvaša 1, 813 25 Bratislava

open every weekday

 

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The current exhibition "Money never sleeps" at the NBS Gallery during the months of September and October 2022 presents the latest works of the artistic tandem of Matúš Maťátko and Filip Sabol. This exhibition is a free continuation of the author duo Maťátko & Sabol, who also presented a joint exhibition last year from a series of works called "Break the wall". In this visual project, they explore the possibilities of materialising street dreams and their subsequent transformation into pop-art works, and at the same time evaluate their creative activity, which in a playful/sophisticated way, but above all in a language that is understandable for all levels of society, points to the issues of contemporary post-capitalist society, where capital or information plays an important role.

Both authors, Maťátko and Sabol, belong to the generation that grew up just after the fall of the socialist regime in the new social establishment of the wild 90s. This generation was already born into the "new world", into new conditions in a society in which smooth rules did not apply, but ferocity and ingenuity, as well as how to legally circumvent valid laws and seize the largest possible share of property in the process of privatisation, i.e. the transfer of state property to private the hands of the emerging new capital class. Legitimately, there has been an opening of the scissors between the drifting strata of the rich and the poor. With this process came the restructuring of enterprises, in the worst case, their demise in the form of liquidation of plants/factories associated with mass layoffs. Thus, a whirlwind of negative impacts was launched during the transition from a centrally controlled economy to a market economy controlled by the invisible hand of supply and demand. Thus, unprecedented social phenomena began to appear in the form of homelessness, unemployment, foreclosures, drug addiction, as well as the emergence of an underworld with organised criminal activity. All this with the latest achievements of technology and science, commonly available on the Western market, created a colourful yet contrasting cocktail of postmodernist life in a post-capitalist society in the post-socialist countries of the former Eastern Bloc. The authors thus created an ideal world that perfectly reflects the pros and cons of this new social order, which we have all been living in for more than the third decade, thus offering an idealised view of our surrounding present. The author tandem skilfully handles the pop-art visual language, formed by flat but elemental painting with bright colours and digital pixel aesthetics of computer games of the 80s and 90s of the last century, punctuated by symbolic references that point to the multi-layered meaning levels of their works. Both authors come from a similar urban environment, which significantly shaped them, and in their work they often return to their personal experiences, which are crucial for authenticity in the author's work. Both artists influenced by the graffiti and rap community of the beginning of the millennium, residential street gangs, or the wild environment in which they grew up, but have since left it and are trying to find "their" place in this complex and unpredictable world. At the same time, their work maps socioeconomic changes in society over the last three decades, so the critical reflection of our post-capitalist society is evident in their works.

 

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Curator of the exhibition: Andrej Jaroš

More information at https://nbs.sk/o-narodnej-banke/vystavy/peniaze-nikdy-nespia.

 

Matúš Maťátko (*1984)

graduated from the AFAD, Free Printmaking and Illustration Studio under supervision of prof. Dušan Kállay. He works in large-scale prints, illustration, sculpture and painting. In 2012, he presented himself at 4 exhibitions in Japan. In 2016, he completed an art internship in Bali (Slowpunch). In public space, he created large-scale paintings in the 4D gallery area in GA, "Angels" on Mariánska street in Bratislava, in the foyer of Nová Cvernovka (The genie is out of the bottle...) and the mural "Birth" on Jakubovo námestie in Bratislava. At the Pohoda and Socha a Objekt festival, he presented the monumental sculpture For Eternal Glory. His last solo project White - blue - red epic was exhibited in Liptovská gallery of P. M. Bohúň. He has been actively working and exhibiting in Slovakia and abroad since 2007.

 

Filip Sabol (*1989)

grew up in the graffiti community in Bratislava at the beginning of the millennium, his work results from the language of the city and the people living in it, in the current digital age. At a time when digital media are already completely accessible and natural for people, the digital world is intertwined with the real world, creating a "glitch" that absorbs people. Sabol communicates the message through the visual language of the present, but formulates it through analog hand-made painting, in its materiality and imperfection. It uses the image as a display, which is a communication medium, a carrier of information, emits light and guides out of this "glitch".