Jupiter is pleased to present a large-scale installation by Haitian-American artist Milo Matthieu at Independent New York from May 9-12, 2024. Comprising of a 26 ft painting and two bronze-cast sculptures connected by a long rope that demarcate a barrier between the audience and the work, the artist’s presentation highlights the tension between the vibrant Black diasporic community within which he grew up and the exclusionary structures of systemic racism that have sidelined such communities in the United States.
Drawing inspiration from Gordon Parks’s iconic 1956 photograph Segregation in the South, which depicted children peering longingly through a chainlink fence at a country fair at which they were not welcome, Matthieu inverses the relationship between the viewer and the object of desire in his installation. Here, Matthieu’s monumental painting of a semi-abstracted cityscape replete with cars, buildings, signs, pedestrians, and a bright pop of yellow daffodils amongst an otherwise black and white composition, is positioned akin to the country fair—a dizzying, joyous spectacle where anything is possible. But the artist bars viewers from approaching and fully immersing themselves in his composition by tying a rope between two identical sculptures of entwined individuals a few feet in front of the wall on which it hangs. In this setting, viewers are denied access to contemporary culture and its privileges, just as the young Black children were in Park’s photograph.
About the Artist
Milo Matthieu (b. 1990, Los Angeles, CA) graduated from Ramapo College of New Jersey in 2013 and has had solo exhibitions at M+B Gallery, Los Angeles; Sorry We’re Closed, Brussels; Kravets Wehby Gallery, New York; The Cabin LA, Los Angeles. He has been featured in group exhibitions at the Historic Hampton House, Miami; Ross-Sutton Gallery, New York; Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles; Beers Gallery, London; V1 Gallery, Copenhagen; and most recently at Library Street Collective, Detroit. Matthieu currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Fair Days & Hours
Thursday, May 9 | 5 pm - 8 pm (VIP Preview)
Friday, May 10 | 11 am – 7 pm
Saturday, May 11 | 11 am – 7 pm
Sunday, May 12 | 11 am – 6 pm
Online Fair Dates
April 25 – May 19, 2024
