City as organism

British artist Matthew Picton studied politics and economics in London and began his artistic career with a move to San Francisco in 1992. For one of his first exhibitions along the West Coast, he experimented brilliantly with materials and forms. His wealth of ideas about how to reinterpret topographic objects knew no bounds. To create his imposing landscapes he built virtuoso sculptures of cardboard and paper or dripped sugar to form chains of mountains.

The passion evident in his newest project lies in cartography, since for him city maps best represent the evolution of metropolises and the brains of civilization. Hot on the track of the urban pulse, he developed visual networks that follow their own laws and lend character to every city. The complex structure of vertical space holds for him a special visual energy that he associates with new technologies. The DuraLar and enamel plates are a special form of relief Picton has perfected in the course of his work. They allow for confusing views down upon and through his unusual city maps.

The especially edited historical maps of European capitals such as Berlin, Paris, and Amsterdam reveal grids, ring systems, and wide transportation arteries that connect to pulsating waterways. A new organism with its own metabolism is born. Picton exposes long-gone urban phenomena and show us structures that represent only tiny puzzle pieces in the complex city we know today. Before wide lanes and boulevards such as in the Parisian Haussmann Plan broke up entire urban neighborhoods, smaller quartiers had merged together in bundled conglomerations of social structures. These structures symbolize for Picton the essence of cities prior to their becoming metropolises.

His lively simulated structural objects thus retell urban history from a modern perspective. With his material experiments, Picton creates works of art full of depth.

Christina Wendenburg