Become a My Ocula member for exclusive access to contemporary art and personalised artist recommendations.
Join Us Sign In
The Art World in Focus
Clear
Matt Connors

MATT CONNORS

Look Up Xavier Hufkens 8 June–20 July 2018 St-Georges
Overview Artworks Location
Request Prices & Availability
Press Release

Xavier Hufkens is pleased to present Look Up, Matt Connors’ second exhibition with the gallery. For much of his career, Connors, a New York-based painter, has shown an almost mischievous embrace of familiar templates to create what he refers to as ‘compelling confusion.’ His approach to painting puts an emphasis on the idea of the structure of his work. By overloading the canvas with pigment-rich paint, or using laminate as a compositional material, he creates pieces that bend conventions. Much like the title of his 2012 book, A Bell Is A Cup, a painting is also a physical construction.

For his new exhibition, Connors has developed a wide range of tones, building on the inspiration he draws from life in a city built on grids, lines, and boundaries. Serendipity is an important compositional tool for Connors, and for this show.

Figures re-emerge in different patterns, with varied weights and palettes. Deep fields of colour are balanced with blocks of white space. Borders can be traditional — contained within the idea of a frame — or can jut into the viewer’s world: Some of the pieces are not on canvas, but are instead plaster casts that paint has been encouraged to seep into. By mounting them on the wall or on pedestals, Connors turns them into objects with a mysterious form and function.

Point of view is essential to examining these images. We could indeed be looking up, or even down, at the infrastructure of a modern metropolis. We could be looking out from, or even into, the myriad patterns of urban life. We could be looking through the windows of a moving vehicle, with all the refractions of light that moving through such a city produces. Connors says these potential filters come from a directive he has given himself as a 21st century city dweller. What questions arise when we look at the world not as the signifiers we know, but as a series of unknowns? What knowledge can we gain by confusing ourselves?

Matt Connors (b. 1973, Chicago) lives and works in New York. Recent group exhibitions include: New York Painting, Kunstmuseum Bonn (2015); The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World, MoMA, New York (2014) and Painter, Painter at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2013). Solo exhibitions include: Impressionism, MoMA PS1, New York (2012), Gas... Telephone... One Hundred Thousand Rubles, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany (2011). In 2015, Matt Connors was a resident at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas. In 2012, he published the award-winning book A Bell is a Cup.

Read More

Installation Views

About the Artist

Matt Connors is a painter with a profound interest in technique and colour. His work draws upon the history of painting and processes, particularly minimalism and abstraction, but is also influenced by design, poetry, writing and music. While his visual vocabulary is often borrowed from the modernist canon–colours, gestures, grids, framing devices and compositions–Connors’ approach to his work is resolutely contemporary in both method and conception. In terms of materials and colouration, his work triggers emotional and intuitive responses. At the same time, it opens up a range of intellectual questions concerning mimesis, iteration and simulacra. Connors often works in series of interlinked, yet wholly autonomous works, in which a lively dialogue is established between repetition and variations in colours and form. Although his paintings might appear to depict something ‘real’–a familiar work of art for example–there is, in fact, no ‘original’. Taken to the logical conclusion, Connors’ paintings could be viewed as having superseded the reality upon which they are based. Matt Connors is also known for his large-scale installations and artist books.

View Artist Profile

Also Exhibiting at Xavier Hufkens

All Exhibitions
Nicolas Party
NICOLAS PARTY Toile d’araignée Xavier Hufkens 21 May–25 July 2026 St-Georges
Joan Semmel
JOAN SEMMEL Continuities Xavier Hufkens 22 April–27 June 2026 Rivoli
About the Gallery
Xavier Hufkens is one of Europe’s leading galleries for contemporary art. Located in Brussels, the gallery maintains a diverse exhibition programme with solo exhibitions of the gallery artists as well as group exhibitions and special projects. The gallery deals in a distinctive combination of painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video and installation-based work.

The origins of the gallery date back to 1987, when Xavier Hufkens opened a gallery space in an un-refurbished warehouse in the neighbourhood of the South Station (Midi) in Brussels. During the early years, the focus of the gallery was upon mid-career and emerging artists and the gallery is known for having introduced some of the most influential contemporary artists to Brussels at a time when they were still relatively unknown. British sculptor Antony Gormley, who is still affiliated with the gallery, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Rosemarie Trockel all showed in Belgium for the first time with Xavier Hufkens (Gormley in 1987; Gonzalez-Torres in 1991 and Trockel in 1993).

In 1992, the gallery moved to a 19th-century townhouse at 6 rue Saint-Georges, close to the Avenue Louise. Completely renovated by Belgian architects Paul Robbrecht, Hilde Daem and Marie-José Van Hee, the house quickly gained a reputation for being not just one of the most beautiful contemporary art spaces in the Belgian capital, but also one of the most interesting. The expanded exhibition programme coincided with the additional representation of a number of established artists from Belgium and abroad, including Richard Artschwager, Thierry De Cordier and Jan Vercruysse. In 1997, Hufkens expanded the gallery further by annexing the adjacent building and a number of new artists joined the gallery, including Louise Bourgeois, Roni Horn and Thomas Houseago.

A second space in the same street, at 107 rue Saint-Georges, opened in spring 2013. Located in the Galerie Rivoli, a mixed-use commercial development from the 1970s, the new gallery space was designed by Swiss architect Harry Gugger, who was previously in partnership with Herzog and De Meuron. Slegten & Toegemann, Brussels, managed the project. A third space opened in spring 2020, located at 44 Rue Van Eyck, designed by architect Bernard Dubois.

An eclectic but very clear vision underpins all of the gallery’s activities: ‘The definition of the gallery was established from the start. The common thread, then and now, is quality over and above everything else, which I find more intellectually challenging than a forced definition. From the early days I juxtaposed established artists such as Michelangelo Pistoletto with someone like Felix Gonzalez-Torres when he was totally unknown. Today I still mix my work: I have no problem showing Malcolm Morley … alongside Robert Ryman, or Willem de Kooning.’ [Xavier Hufkens in The Art Newspaper, Issue 220, January 2011, published online: 20 January 2011]

Xavier Hufkens represents some thirty artists from different generations. He was part of the six-member selection committee for Art Basel during seven years and also participates in up to five international Arts Fairs annually. The gallery has partnerships with the estates of Louise Bourgeois, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mapplethorpe and Alice Neel.
View Gallery Profile
Address
6 rue St-Georges
St-Jorisstraat
Brussels
Belgium
Opening Hours
Tuesday – Saturday
11am – 6pm
(1)
Brussels 6 rue St-Georges
Xavier Hufkens contemporary art gallery in St-Georges Brussels Belgium
Xavier Hufkens
6 rue St-Georges, St-Jorisstraat, Brussels, Belgium
+32 263 967 30
http://www.xavierhufkens.com

Opening hours
Tuesday – Saturday
11am – 6pm
Magazine Gallery Platform Advisory
Ocula Magazine

A respected voice in contemporary art discourse.

Focusing on ambitious storytelling and insightful art-world commentary. Ocula Magazine publishes in-depth interviews, critical essays and timely analysis on the artists, exhibitions and ideas driving the global art world.

 Learn more about Ocula Magazine Learn more about Ocula Magazine Ocula Gallery Platform

Showcasing the best of the art world.

Ocula partners with galleries from around the world to highlight their artists, artworks and exhibitions. Gallery membership is by application and invitation, with each member vetted by an independent panel.

 Learn more about Ocula Membership Learn more about Ocula Membership Ocula Advisory

Specialises in the sale of major artworks.

Led by a team with deep ties to the world’s leading auction houses, galleries and collectors. Ocula’s advisory team offers bespoke services to high-net-worth clients from around the world who are looking to acquire the best of contemporary and modern art.

 Learn more about our team and services Learn more about Ocula Advisory
The art world in focus