Crazy in Print

February 03, 2019

Why create something when it already exists? A remarkably logical sentiment considering the sheer volume of creative endeavors that rise and fall as quickly as it takes you to read this very sentence. But if we were all to succumb to this myopic manner of viewing the world, then think of all the brilliant things in it that would never exist—like MATTO Magazine.

The imaginative brainchild of Aldo Buscalferri and Dominika Hadelova, MATTO Magazine brings something refreshing and subversive—in both form and function— to the often stale (not to mention ever-dwindling) world of print. After meeting at a bookshop in Paris, the pair flirted with the idea of a zine before saying ‘Fuck it’ and letting their creative impulses get the better of them—with MATTO.

With artistic backgrounds in photography, writing, visual art and graphic design, it’s no doubt this experiential framework informs the way in which Buscalferri and Hadelova approach certain subjects and investigate certain topics—it’s the difference between the hyper-critical approach of an academic and that of a curious, like-minded individual genuinely eager to understand the psychic inner-workings of a fellow creative. In this way, MATTO is remarkably human, opting to explore what makes an artist tick, rather than providing a perfunctory review of the work they deliver.

Interview by Kennedy Fairfax

With the first issue alone, the duo has made it pretty clear that, when it comes to the conventional ideas and rules that go along with creating a magazine, they give zero fucks. Take the traditional timeline of releasing issues along with the seasons, for example: Buscalferri and Hadelova DGAF. Less concerned with fleeting cultural resonance of the hot new thing or any kind of momentary hype, they’re instead focused on highlighting those whose creative authenticity translates seamlessly into their own radical craft. The title MATTO—the Italian word for ‘crazy’-- is, in itself, a perfect embodiment of what the magazine embraces: a little bit of this, and a little dash of that, with no subject too taboo to be left in the cutting room.

Read our interview with the duo below, and pick up a copy of MATTO at the office Newsstand.

Tell me a little about yourselves and your magazine.

Aldo Buscalferri: My name is Aldo, I’m Italian from Milano, but I’ve lived in Paris for the last nine years. So, I just consider myself European. When I lived in Milano, I always worked for magazines—mostly men’s fashion and style magazines—and when I moved to Paris, I shifted towards contemporary art magazines. I studied in art school in Milano, as well.

Dominika Hadelova: My name is Dominika and I am Czech, but I’ve lived in Scotland for quite a long time—I went to art school there. Then I moved to Paris to study printmaking—I’ve always worked with paper and print, in that kind of medium.

How did you guys meet and start the the magazine?

Dominika Hadelova: We met in a bookshop that specializes in art, photography, fashion books and magazines. They’ve been around for about twenty years, and I worked there when I first came to Paris. One day, he came in and I saw him, and sold him some expensive books. We knew each other for some time before we created the magazine—it wasn’t like we met and said, ‘Okay, let’s make a magazine.’ It was way more organic, more natural. We had this idea in our head for some time, then suddenly it started to snowball into something much larger—it started to consume our lives.

Aldo Buscalferri: Actually, we had a lot of doubts about MATTO because there are so many magazines around the world—we worried about if starting a magazine was the best idea. But after some months we thought, ‘Fuck it.’ This is something that we love so much, and something that we enjoy doing, especially because this magazine is our own project, which is something very few people decide to do.

Dominika Hadelova: That was something we realized in the first two months—how important it is to have your own project. The amount of time and energy you are willing to invest in something that is yours is incredible. Everything becomes an opportunity or a reason—everything just becomes connected to that one thing.

Aldo Buscalferri: When we started to do some precise points in mind—most of which concerned how not to repeat some of the bad experiences we’ve had in the past when we have worked in the same field—one of the main points for us was to be really free in our thoughts and expressions. We decided pretty early on that for our first issue, we didn’t want to include any advertisements—we wanted to be absolutely free, and to create a genuine product. Maybe in the future we could see if we wanted advertisers, but in that moment, we decided to have it that way. What normally happens in the publishing world is that most of the time everything sits at the top of the table—special marketing, advertising, those kinds of things. For us, these things were something that hindered our creative process, so we said, ‘No, let’s do something different.’

Dominika Hadelova: Yes, we didn’t just want to be another photography magazine, another fashion magazine—we didn’t want to do another series demunde. We wanted to mix all of these fields and cross things over—we wanted the form of the magazine to reflect us.

Aldo Buscalferri: Yes, it’s quite simple. We are passionate about contemporary art and music, etc. It wouldn’t have made sense if we didn’t incorporate all of these passions within our design.

Once you define something too much, you put a border around it.

Dominika Hadelova: Yes, exactly. I think it’s the perfect reflection of us. In fact, when we were printing, it was quite nice to see that each page wasn’t purely Aldo or purely Dominika, but rather this incredible chemical mix of two things coming together. I think really we made something that mixes everything up but still possesses a thematic fluidity. At the beginning of this process, when we were approaching people on the street for interviews, people would always ask us, ‘So what is this magazine about? How would you describe this magazine?’ At that point, we had already come to the conclusion that we didn’t want to over-define MATTO. We felt very strongly that once you define something too much, you put a border around it. When something is concretely defined, a kind of mental and emotional movement is hindered. Staying fluid is something we really wanted for the magazine, so that it doesn’t feel forced in any way.

Aldo Buscalferri: Yes, the problem is that with this market, especially if you are a normal magazine working with advertisers, they typically need a clear statement, a clear-cut explanation of what the magazine is all about. Of course, we have some of these ingredients, but we really didn’t want to have one predominant ingredient. For example, if you work for a generic art magazine, you just talk about contemporary art, you don’t touch anything else most of the time. Fashion magazines, you just discuss fashion, and so on.

Dominika Hadelova: In this issue, we have an interview with this Scottish installation artist named Claire Barclay, and I think that because we are not art critics or journalists, our interview is much more accessible to the reader. Also, because we speak directly to the artists, they never write something up really fast or prepare something to say—what they say on the spot comes from a profoundly genuine place. In that way alone, MATTO isn’t your ordinary art magazine—it’s all open conversation.

Aldo Buscalferri: The experience is super important to us, and that’s why we always ask to meet every individual we choose to include in person. With real encounters, you can discover so many things about the subject that would have been lost in translation if you communicated via email, telephone or Skype.

Dominika Hadelova: For example, we went to interview this artist in Brooklyn for our next issue, and when she opened the door, we noticed that her studio was just full of things—like no joke, things everywhere! Then she went into this long-winded monologue that lasted for about twenty minutes, and Aldo and I were looking at each other like, ‘What is this woman talking about? I don’t understand anything she is saying.’ It was an experience similar to when someone wakes up and has a really vivid dream, and tries to retell that dream to another person, and that person has no idea what that other one is talking about. It was only after she showed us some of her work and played us a 45-minute video piece that we started to grasp her artistic identity and the underlying concepts of her pieces. After that initial ‘Eureka!’ moment, you immediately want more. Something just shifted in our understanding, and that experience you can never have with an email interview, you can never have that over the phone, you simply can’t. Or even in a conversation that we had with an artist in this issue—as you speak, the conversation suddenly becomes about materials, not just about her work, but her experiences working with different materials. Real life conversations have this fluidity that can’t be recreated.

Aldo Buscalferri: Yes, especially when we touch on contemporary art precisely because it’s not our background—we don’t have the technical, critical approach that we find most of the time in other art magazines, which is sometimes very big if you’re not inside that world, you understand nothing. I mean, this is also very important.

If there is one thing you want your readers to take away from MATTO, what would it be? Who are your readers?

Dominika Hadelova: I think our reader would be someone who is curious, someone who is open-minded, someone who would like to experiment and someone who is not afraid of things being mixed, and being open.

Aldo Buscalferri: I think also a secret ingredient to our magazine is erotics, or sex, which is a subject that could be a bit touchy, cheesy or cheap, or whatever. Luckily, we had a good concept of themes throughout the series.

Dominika Hadelova: Again, I think these qualities are a reflection of us. We chose everything, we chose the graphic design, the layout, the content—everything.

What do you hope to accomplish with your next issue? What’s something that you wanted to explore a little more in this issue that you realized only after the fact?

Dominika Hadelova: In some ways, I can already picture the second issue, but I really feel like it’s going to be a continuity, a progression of the first—this issue is the baby, and the second issue will be a little more grown up.

Aldo Buscalferri: For sure we would like to have more content, so adding more pages. Maybe in this issue we have two pieces about clubs, the first being the Kinky Club in Tokyo, and the other, the Extravaganza Club in Paris. Maybe in the next issue we take one club around the world. We came to New York and took advantage of our time here to meet some new people, do some interviews, collaborate with some people we didn’t expect to collaborate with—our work process is like that. We’re going to London in January, and we’re going to meet someone we discovered in Tokyo at the end of May, and we liked the music very much. So, we set up a meeting in Brooklyn—that’s how we create content. It’s also important to have a big part that you don’t know yet, so we can stay surprising you.

Dominika Hadelova: This is a really unique quality that Aldo has—it was something in the beginning that I was quite impressed by: the way he knows what he wants and what he likes or doesn’t, but his mind remains so open. You meet people, you can speak to them and you are always willing to try new things, and I think that is such an important quality in this industry—staying open.

What do you think is the role of art when it comes to shaping culture? How do you think we are affected by it?

Dominika Hadelova: I’m going to talk about this from the other side, from the perspective of someone who sees art but doesn’t make it themselves: I think art compels someone to question things, enables you to realize things about oneself, to ask questions that you would normally not have to ask if had a normal nine-to-five job. I think that can open up really interesting discussions and modes of thinking. Yeah, I would say to question things you formerly accepted as truth.

Aldo Buscalferri: To question yourself. Firstly, the work of art should talk to you emotionally, otherwise, without that vulnerability, your connection with the piece means nothing. Then, after this inward introspection, it should make you question the society that surrounds you.

Dominika Hadelova: Exactly. I think to be an artist, there are certain freedoms that you have to have, but those freedoms come with a lot of anxieties that most people in this realm don’t really talk about. These anxieties are exactly the reason as to why one questions how things work, and how these things could work differently. It’s something that can make a cut—to open up some wounds, bring about something fresh.

Aldo Buscalferri: Art should open up doors and windows—like you see something that you didn’t catch before. I think that art should give someone new vision, and it should resonate with you on an emotional level.

Dominika Hadelova: For us, seeing an art exhibition, to do those kinds of things, it’s like eating food—it’s something that I just can’t imagine not doing. I can’t imagine not doing all the creative things that I love.

It’s just about following your instincts and listening to that little voice inside your head.

Where does the title, MATTO, come from?

Aldo Buscalferri and Dominika Hadelova: The word MATTO means crazy in Italian. Even though we didn’t choose the title for any specific reason, we found it to be rather well-suited in the end because it is crazy to create yet another magazine. Now we like the word MATTO because it works nicely as an adjective attached—for example, we had this idea of making a sexy and glossy middle section of the magazine, which would be called Sessomatto, which translates to ‘crazy sex.’ Then there is MATTO Project—beyond making the magazine we also work on graphic design, produce video and writing as a creative studio.

Is there one thing that you now know, or an experience that gave you guys some sort of clarity you didn’t have when you began this process?

Aldo Buscalferri: You never realize the amount of time that you are going to spend on the project, quite happily though—it’s never a pain in the ass.

Dominika Hadelova: Sometimes we think we’re going crazy, you know? There are moments when you really think that you are on the borderline of insanity, and I think that really it makes you question so many things.

Aldo Buscalferri: But as I say, if you start a project like, ‘Okay, we’ll sit down at the table, what are we going to do? These economic factors… blah blah blah…’—you actually aren’t doing anything. Sometimes, it’s just about following your instincts and listening to that little voice inside your head. Then everything will figure itself out, even if it takes some time.

Dominika Hadelova: See, but it’s really quite amazing; I think that four months ago, Aldo and I didn’t know we could work in this way together. That discovery was incredible.

Aldo Buscalferri: I always told Dominika that I wanted to do a project just like this for a very long time—the project was never realized because I didn’t have the right person in front of me. But this partnership is just… fuck!

Dominika Hadelova: It literally feels like when you ignite something—I can’t believe that four months ago MATTO was just a thought that even we didn’t really believe in. Often it can feel really crazy because you’re just working from home on your own, and you have this idea in your head, and now four months later, we’re sitting here at this table talking about something we have created, something so real. It’s incredible how much your head can shift in that time if you stick with something. There were so many moments when we could have gone, ‘Fuck this,’ moments when we were exhausted, and all the emails and what not, but you just have to keep going.

MATTO Issue One is out now. Buy it here and at the office Newsstand.

Art

A Night at MOCA

Esteemed guests such as contemporary artist Paul McCarthy, rockstar Kim Gordon, and director Ava DuVernay were in attendance, where the dinner kicked off with a captivating performance by the rhythmic beats of the Makoto Taiko Japanese drum ensemble. The museum was adorned with fantastical installations and mesmerizing projections, transporting attendees to underwater realms and lush garden landscapes. Notable among these were Schnieder's enchanting Dendrite Bonsai and Tide Piepool sculptures, adding an extra layer of allure to the ambiance. While guests shared space MOCA's Board Chair, Maria Seferian, remarked on the importance of the night. "Max's presentation asks us to look beyond the maudlin and instead consider the miraculous. Returning to the artist-designed MOCA Gala is an idea about a relationship between artist and museum, not intended to privilege or position any one artist, but rather continuing a conversation rendered mute without each of them."

As guests mingled and finished their dinners, multi-Grammy nominee St. Vincent commanded the space with a beautiful performance. The atmosphere in the room bore witness to the profound significance of the arts and the invaluable contributions of MOCA within the local Los Angeles community and the global artistic community at large. "Artists serve as both mirrors of the present and portals to other futures," said Johanna Burton, The Maurice Marciano Director of MOCA. "With Max's radical transformation of our Gala and St. Vincent's incredible performance, the night allowed us all to come together around art and artists as some of the most powerful messengers of our time. It represented the heart and soul of what MOCA is about."

Artists serve as both mirrors of the present and portals to other futures.

After the dinner and performances, the festivities continued with the After-Party, where musicians Kilo Kish and Kitty Ca$h took over the DJ booth, keeping the night alive with their beats. A post-dinner snack of petite burgers and fries circulated, providing a delightful late-night treat for partygoers. Laughter filled the air as guests danced and enjoyed each other's company, marking the joyful conclusion of MOCA's annual Gala.

Explore the night below and make sure to visit MOCA the next time you’re in LA.

Art

The Devil’s Chestnut at Phil Callery

April 12, 2024

Louis Shannon and Philippe de Sablet met in New York more than a decade ago, through the underground music scene. Back then, Louis was running the now defunct but storied downtown art collective Luck You, with friends he grew up around in lower Manhattan and touring with various punk bands. Phil was attending underground concerts and eventually befriended Louis through mutual friends. The two mostly admired each other from afar, as collaboration was hindered by distance. Louis has been occupied with building his gallery Entrance from a guerilla basement space to a semi-institution on the Lower East Side. Phil, on the other hand, has been developing his own practice and operating Phil Callery, a relaxed hub for DIY shows in Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles. In February, the long overdue collaboration finally arrived, thanks to Louis being in town for Felix. The Devil Chestnut, a group show organized by Louis and Phil at Phil Callery, opened on February 27th.

By Qingyuan Deng
Imagery courtesy of Entrance and Phil Callery

The group show is many things. Its minimal installation belies a sense of brevity that can also be found in the rather esoteric press release. Simultaneously, there is an aftermath to viewing the show that lurks nearby. A militant intention that cannot be easily resolved, if you will. Z. Susskind’s plexiglass installation Gloves (2024) which spells out ‘gloves’ in all capitalized letters embodies such militancy well. Through its black reflective surface, one sees the still industrial landscape of the neighborhood. Pop meets opacity here. Another Susskind work Time, the Old Cashier (2024) more casually plays with weight and lightness, gesturing toward unseen physical acts. Phil Davis’s C-Print photograph Ciara (2003) points to the uncomfortable gap between self-fashioning and the real, a gap that exponentially explodes in Carmel Ni’s Pilgrim shoe (2024). Elsewhere, paintings by JPW3 (Patrick Walsh), Sara Gernsbacher, and Kate Mosher Hall all enjoy varying degrees of raciness, bordering a frenzy in some cases and presenting more subdued qualities in others. Still, words cannot do justice to the feel-good line-up — rising stars and superstars who are friends of both galleries fleshing out fundamentals of their practices without a care.

Ravenne Swaner
Unfolding, 2020
Oil on canvas
16 x 20 in

Phil Davis
Ciara, 2003
C-Print
7 x 9 in

Congratulations on The Devil’s Chestnut to both of you! I heard the opening was a buzzy success, tell us more about how this exhibition came to be!

Louis— I was always a fan of Phil Callery, even though I had never actually been there. Phil and I were very close friends in New York. And I’d always dreamt about going to a Phil Callery opening and there’s no better way to go to an opening than putting on a show there. In terms of timing, Entrance was heading west for Felix, which is our first operation on the west coast. This little window of opportunity opened, and we decided to sneak a show in there at the same time.

Phil— Luckily, I held on to the space, as a sublet for friends’ studio space. It was very easy to jump back in.

Louis— The mission behind Entrance, in a way, ran parallel to what I recognized was happening at Phil Callery, even though our timing was a little different. Now Entrance has grown into a gallery with a rigorous program, the need to do fairs internationally, and the want to help artists grow. The same ethos of making room for experimentation and new voices and honoring an artist’s practice is still at the foundation of both of those galleries.

I heard that, leading up to the exhibition, you two took a weeklong road trip from New York to LA. What was the road trip like?

Louis— It was incredible, both functional and fun. In the art world, it's very hard to get any time off, so we decided to take a little bit of extra time across the country. We took Route 66 and visited artists and a lot of old-school American roadside attractions along the way. Many people visit land art when they’re traveling, but we wanted to visit the world’s biggest mailbox.

We were also picking up artworks along the way for The Devil’s Chestnut. It was an adventurous treasure hunt. We visited some friends in Pittsburgh that run a project space called ROMANCE, and visited one of Phil's best friends, the artist Zach Armstrong in Dayton, Ohio. Every day, we would only decide a certain amount of driving time and what to have for dinner that night. We had burgers in Tulsa and barbecue in St. Louis. It’s good to get perspective away from the coasts and know that culture and art exists across the United States.

Jack Shannon <em>Spoon 14</em>, 2023 Oakwood 12 x 7 x 2 in — Jack Shannon *Spoon 14*, 2023 Oakwood 12 x 7 x 2 in

Kate Mosher Hall <em>Forever Long</em>, 2023 Acrylic on canvas on panel 16 x 20 in — Kate Mosher Hall *Forever Long*, 2023 Acrylic on canvas on panel 16 x 20 in

Carmel Ni <em>Pilgrim shoe</em>, 2024 Plastic, polyester and foil Dimensions variable — Carmel Ni *Pilgrim shoe*, 2024 Plastic, polyester and foil Dimensions variable

Ravenne Swaner <em>Gate</em>, 2021 Oil on canvas 24 x 30 in — Ravenne Swaner *Gate*, 2021 Oil on canvas 24 x 30 in

Jpw3 (Patrick Walsh) <em>Plot A</em>, 2024 Stainless steel wood paper ash twigs cardboard dust leaves 12 x 9 x 20 in — Jpw3 (Patrick Walsh) *Plot A*, 2024 Stainless steel wood paper ash twigs cardboard dust leaves 12 x 9 x 20 in

The Devil’s Chestnut felt like a homecoming journey that intimately revisits both galleries’ history. How does it feel to mount a very personal presentation exhibition, while two major art fairs were happening.

Phil— The installation process was intense for me, because I had to figure out how to accurately use this very intimate space, which almost became part of the exhibition. Things calmed down afterwards. Louis, while you were deep in the art fair, I was tucked away at the gallery, which functioned as a little rest stop away from the fair chaos.

Louis— The Devil’s Chestnut is a hometown group show that celebrates new voices and the history of the space. Phil Callery has always been an inviting space that mixes high and low. On the opening night, the biggest movers and shakers in the Los Angeles art scene and customers of the taco shop next door were at the gallery. The gallery originated in a very definitive moment in the Lincoln Heights, Chinatown area, where a lot of artists had their studios, and where a lot of people would visit after work. Night Gallery was founded right next door to that space, which has now grown exponentially to a real force in LA.

What are some of your observations about the neighborhood Phil Gallery is in and LA’s art scene?

Phil— Lincoln Heights is weirdly resistant to gentrification and has stayed how it was when I left. I like that a lot.

Louis— There's a lot of camaraderie between artists, which I really appreciate. Artists tend to go to each other’s shows and studios a lot more. Also, by nature of having so much more space, LA attracts artists who have a lot less fear about working at a larger scale.

You two met a decade ago in New York, while Louis was a member of the downtown collective Luck You and Phil was visiting underground concerts. Can you tell me a bit more about that post-Great-Recession moment of participating in the art scene in downtown Manhattan, where a lot of cheap real estate was readily available.

Louis— I just came out of high school when I joined Luck You and some members of our collective were still in high school. We were really focused on what people were making locally and we weren't thinking about the larger art world. We were just trying to put our friends’ projects on. We started in what is now the lower-level gallery of Entrance, back then it was really a clubhouse. We would also use abandoned spaces in the neighborhood to put on shows. I don't think we were necessarily aware of an economic downturn in the neighborhood, which was mostly food distribution and clothing shops. The collective did our best to respect the community that was immediately around us. We would work with our neighbors, invite them to shows, and respond to their noise complaints. Then, the art world seeped in, as we all sort of grew up out of the collective.

The collective wasn’t really interacting with anything outside of our local neighborhood community. Sometimes people would pluck us out and drop us into centers of the art world, because we had a story that can be told. The collective insists on art as a way of living rather than a job and I still live by that to this today.

Phil— Phil Callery started as my studio. I was just having friends over every night drinking beer and playing dice. One day, I decided to give my friends shows in that space. The gallery just came out of that need. At the same time, I was visiting New York frequently, as Night Gallery’s preparator installing their art fair booths. That's how I met Louis, it turns out I went to high school with his then roommate.

Now, many of the artists in The Devil’s Chestnut are superstars showing with powerhouse galleries in LA. Both Entrance and Phil Callery are spaces of experimentation and collaboration for emerging artists. So much labor is embedded into being an incubator, but often such labor is under-appreciated, as we live in a cultural moment of “bigger is better”. Tell us more about how you keep up with this spirit of experimentation with integrity and good faith.

Phil— For me, the goal was never to get to a place. I was just thinking about what I can do that’s interesting, fun, and stimulating. It’s hard for me to even take credit for any kind of integrity that may exist there. I’m just wired to just have a good time and keep doing interesting things.

Louis— Authenticity seeps out when you’re doing the next right thing. I love running Entrance, because I believe that the mission that I started with is scalable. A lot of the artists that I am working with had never shown before, and now have a career as artists and can make work for a living. I am always trying to make room for new voices. My favorite thing is when I meet older curators or gallerists, who have been in the industry for say 50 years and are still excited when they walk into a room and see something new. They're not jaded and have stayed curious. And I think that curiosity is scalable, in terms of elevating voices that matter. Phil and I got that curiosity from our days of touring in bands, where we witnessed so much craziness.

Phil— Entrance is like almost the sustainable progression of what Phil Callery could have been?

Louis— Right, how do you take a gallery to the next level without basically becoming like some stock exchange and selling out? I never worked at a big gallery and have retained that sensitivity to the community around me. So has Phil Callery. If you mentioned Pill Callery in LA, everyone always remembers good memories of shows they have seen or the time they spent there. You can't ask for much more than that in this world.

Sara Gernsbacher <em>Untitled</em>, 2024 Oil acrylic and graphite on canvas panel 14 1/2 x 18 1/2 in — Sara Gernsbacher *Untitled*, 2024 Oil acrylic and graphite on canvas panel 14 1/2 x 18 1/2 in

Mariko Makino <em>Blue</em>, 2023 Neon tubing, argon, garden wire, reclaimed oak 42 1/2 x 13 x 10 in — Mariko Makino *Blue*, 2023 Neon tubing, argon, garden wire, reclaimed oak 42 1/2 x 13 x 10 in

Zora Moniz <em>one is sacred one is business (gray, ghost orchid)</em>, 2023 Oil on canvas 24 x 18 in — Zora Moniz *one is sacred one is business (gray, ghost orchid)*, 2023 Oil on canvas 24 x 18 in

Z. Susskind <em>Time, the Old Cashier</em>, 2024 Copper, rope, steel 8 x 9 x 2 in — Z. Susskind *Time, the Old Cashier*, 2024 Copper, rope, steel 8 x 9 x 2 in

Ravenne Swaner <em>Spires</em>, 2024 Beeswax, paraffin and string Variable dimensions — Ravenne Swaner *Spires*, 2024 Beeswax, paraffin and string Variable dimensions

Art

'Door to Door' Offers a Slice of Life in Iran

April 05, 2024

In a new exhibition curated by yalla imshi, featuring works by architect and sculptor Christopher Al-Jumah, Mohammad Rezaei's photographs, "captured during reflective walks through Iranian streets," offer a glimpse into daily life distinct to that found on our own crowded streets. When Al-Jumah saw Rezaei's "Slice of Life" photography of Iran's urban and rural life, he was immediately taken by the symbols and iconography evident across doorways and houses, finding it "beautiful to see how the people had ornamented their lives." In response, Al-Jumah began crafting crude furniture piece from Persian silkwood (sourced from Bay Ridge and found on Craigslist), engraving symbols found in Rezaei's photographs onto the objects, thus bringing this exhibition to life.

Showing at 28 Elizabeth Street Floor 3, New York until April 16th, Door to Door "is a nod to the mundane that remains still in the dust painted, repainted, and repurposed with time."

By Sara Eldewak
Photographs by Mohammad Razaei, courtesy of the artist

The exhibition is accompanied by a book of Rezaei’s photography, and a series of essays and writings that respond to the photographs by writers Mnatalla Eldaas, Akram Shah, Abhi Janamanchi, Zari G, Saam Niami, and Safa Ghasemi.

Spaces breathe like silent narrators of their time. Where the everyday matter reaches a position of unity and glory to sit at the point of concentration and start a secret conversation.