“The pleasure of the text is that moment when my body pursues its own ideas – for my body does not have the same ideas I do.” (Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text)

Ratio 3 is pleased to present its first U.S. solo exhibition of works by Mathew Hale. On view from May 18 through June 22, Ma The Whale features new works that include collage, installation, and an audio/visual projection.

Living and working in Berlin since 2000, Mathew Hale enjoys the status of an ex-patriate, both in Germany and increasingly in England, his country of origin. Ma The Whale will debut thirteen new collages in his “MIRIAM” series. Displayed in custom artist’s frames, the works combine printed imagery and text with handwritten notes, drawings, and three-dimensional objects. Hale will also show a new installation titled “Homage to Hans Haake’s Mother,” and the audio slideshow “Die munze” (The Coin), a meditation on aspects of West German society with readings by Astrid Proll. Seen as a group, the works form a network of visual triggers that unpack the artist’s private scrutiny of public lives.

Ratio 3 has previously exhibited works from Hale’s “Miriam” series, which construct intimate constellations around imagined characters living in historical Germany. The works comprising Ma The Whale share his earlier works’ emphasis on process and intimacy, favoring montage over narrative. In keeping with the exhibition’s title, wordplay and subversive humor are prominent in Hale’s recent work. Looking back at Britain with a kind of abstracted freedom, and in on Germany with a foreign eye, his work is often sparked by spontaneous eruptions of irreverence.

“The text is (should be) that uninhibited person who shows his behind to the Political Father.”

This exhibition is accompanied by cut in Cannes, a new artist’s book published by PAM Book. The publication features two works from his Die Neue Miriam series, and is designed to allow the reader to explore each work in minute detail.

Mathew Hale was born in Wiltshire, Great Britain in 1962. He earned degrees from the Winchester School of Art and Goldsmith College at London University. His recent exhibitions include: The Welcome Stranger, Wentrup, Berlin (2012); Die Willkommene Fremde, Galerie Michel Rein, Paris (2012); Wacht Schatz, Wentrup, Berlin (2010); Der Mond v Le Monde, Peer, London (2009); and Le Monde v Der Monde, The Narrows, Melbourne (2009). Die Munze (2011) has screened once before at the Museum of Modern Art as part of their “Modern Mondays” program. Hale has forthcoming exhibitions at Art Berlin Contemporary (2013) and the Australian Center for Contemporary Art (2013).

Ratio 3 Gallery
2831A Mission Street
San Francisco (CA) 94110 United States
Tel. +1 (415) 8213371
gallery@ratio3.org
www.ratio3.org

Opening hours
Tuesday - Saturday
From 11am to 6pm
And by appointment