“Collings’ art history is truly artist-centric, not at all chronological, and borderline metaphysical. The drawings are a mash-up of fact, gossip, and invention. They include artists, musicians, writers, mystics, biblical figures, political figures, the British royals, and occasionally Collings himself. They address art as a tradition, as a cult, and as a lens through which we can examine the collective conscience of society. They allude to the mystery of creativity and the interconnectedness of those who engage with art. In Collings’ version of art history, timelines get tangled and the membrane between the living and dead is permeable. Collectively, his drawings are not so much a history of art as an art séance.”
Emily Ferranto, New Orleans Review, 2022
Matthew Collings’ first solo exhibition with Vigo showcases the paintings and drawings he has been doing over the last three years, selling, to a public already conditioned to respect art, an idea of it as radical subjectivity. Beauty exists. Realistic picturing exists. Colour exists. Narrative exists. They’re all real. Collings whips all this stuff up. Ideas, knowledge, originality, we can vividly rethink all that. Being an “art lover” doesn’t have to mean dutiful obedience. All that is the message of his imagery. From Yayoi Kusama sticking polka dots to cars, to Richard Prince appropriating the jokes of Rodney Dangerfield, to Jordy Kerwick welcoming an audience to a jungle studio open day, Collings conjures scenes which are familiar if you’ve ever had any experience of art, but that are also dissolved and unhinged in some way, amounting to an “Alternative Art History.”
“We can’t know it, straight,” he maintains. “It’s changing all the time; it’s being reshaped according to new agreements about what reality is. Our world is bizarre now. These artworks make more sense than what the government says. There’s no real art history going on somewhere, full of facts. In any case facts and dates and are the least interesting thing about art. The hot stuff is freedom. But how do you see it? What do you need to know? What do you already know that can be released?” These questions are what the mood of the pictures — sometimes serious sometimes nonsense — is about.
Collings is currently writing an alternative art history for Thames & Hudson, to be released next year. It will be illustrated throughout by his drawings and will extend in written form the whole mix of surrealism, anecdote, philosophising and anarchy that produced them.
MATTHEW COLLINGS (b. 1955 in London, England) is an artist and writer. He studied painting at the Byam Shaw art school. He is a well-known commentator on art. He has written many popular books, as well as written and presented many TV series. His six-part series This is Modern Art, on Channel 4, produced by Ian MacMillan, won many awards including a BAFTA. His book Blimey! From Bohemia to Britpop: The London Artworld from Francis Bacon to Damien Hirst was published by David Bowie. Matthew was commended by the Turner Prize for his work in transforming the UK art magazine Artscribe into an international publication. He is one half of the painting duo, Biggs & Collings, with his partner, the mosaicist Emma Biggs. Their joint works are based on patterns and are in collections throughout the world. Collings is currently working on an illustrated book to be published next year, titled Alternative Art History: What’s happening, why do we have souls, what’s art for?
Please note that English Heritage charge an entry fee of £7.50. Tickets are available in advance at their website here or to buy upon entry.