The black figure has always been a subject of entertainment in popular culture, as well as an image to sell things. In some ways, that’s how people relate to us—because they’ve seen us on television.
—
Derrick Adams
Matthew Bliss by George Lewis
- Wendy Wasserstein by A.M. Homes
- Wong Kar-wai by Liza Béar
- Amos Gitai by Minna Proctor
- Eduardo Galeano by Jaime Manrique
- Tobias Schneebaum by Allan Gurganus
- Michael Goldberg by Saul Ostrow
- Samuel Mockbee by Judy Hudson
- Andrea Zittel by Stefano Basilico
Interviews
- John Torreano by Giovanni Rizzoli
- George Mead Moore by James Brown
- Matthew Bliss by George Lewis
Artists on Artists
- Incidents of Travel in Riversford by Thomas Bolt
- Two Poems by Katherine Soniat
- Two Poems by Sidney Wade
- A Fifth of November by Paul West
- The Dead Man by Joshua Harmon
- Preservation by Tenaya Darlington
- Sitting Vigil by Guy Gallo
- Housebroken by Yael Hedaya
- Two Poems by Molly McQuade
First Proof
- The Complete Mercury Max Roach Plus Four Sessions & The Complete Vee Jay Lee Morgan—Wayne Shorter Sessions by Zoë Anglesey
- Tom Cora by David Krasnow
- Marjorie Welish’s The Annotated “Here” by Frances Richard
- Debora Silverman’s Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Search for the Sacred Art by Judith Linhares
- William Tester’s ‘Head’ by David Ryan
- Wyn Cooper’s The Way Back by Jack Stephens
- Carrie Mae Weems’s The Hampton Project by Suzan Sherman
- Slavoj Žižek’s The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s Lost Highway by Rachel Kushner
- Stephen Antonakos’s Proscenium by Marjorie Welish
Editor's Choice
Discover MFA Programs in Art and Writing
Matthew Bliss, Red Wall with High Square Window, 2000, brass, copper, solder and sanded window glass, oil paint, 8 x 6 x 2 inches. Photographs by James Dee. All images courtesy of the artist.
“Take me back, take me way way way back …”
—Van Morrison
These miniature sculptures have the look of prehistoric plumbing devices, they’re so low technology. Assembled, welded, hammered, painted, cursed, dented and reworked over long periods of time, their colors become burnished and caked; the forms are found at the eleventh hour. Just like Pierre Bonnard, Matthew Bliss never lets go; he is unremitting. There’s no mistaking his artifacts for jewelry. And as in a Bonnard, a flash of preciousness gives way to a low level blast, a palpable discontent. Wrestling to hold their own, Bliss’s artifacts keep elbowing forward, accosting us like the Manchester soccer fans who like to head butt the rest of Europe. Tough-minded little guys. The meaning? Not much helps us here. There are no wall labels. Just the remains of what passed the test, that narrow glimpse of reality. Light and weight transformed by the visible traces of a hand at work. For an instant I’m considering the mind of another—struggling to put a form in space, my space. That’s all that’s here, and it’s dazzling.
Matthew Bliss, Homage to Wilmarth, 1999, brass, copper, solder and oil paint, 3¾ x 6 x 2 inches.
Related
The Irish playwright on grief, adaptation, and the possibilities of form.
The artist talks about the genesis, composition, and execution of a recently completed work.
A New York- and Cairo-based artist unpacks her understanding of heritage and how it can operate in contemporary art.
Originally published in
BOMB 75,
Spring 2001
Featuring interviews with Wendy Wasserstein, Wong Kar-Wai, Amos Gitai, Eduardo Galeano, Tobias Schneebaum, Micheal Goldberg, Samuel Mockbee, Andrea Zittel.
