Landon Metz Love Songs by Waddington Custot

Landon Metz Love Songs

Introduction 6 Interview 22 Plates 29 List of works 70 Biography 75

The Space Between

Francesca Gavin

John Cage’s composition 4'33" was first performed in Woodstock, New York, in 1952 by David Tudor. It consisted of four minutes and 33 seconds of silence, gestured at the start and finish by the performer. In this case, Tudor closed the lid of the piano at the Maverick Theatre at the start of the piece, and opened it when it was finished. Inspired by Zen Buddhism and the I-Ching, Cage’s work aligned the concepts of silence and slowness with awareness. Landon Metz, who also comes from a musical background, lays his fascination with visual space at Cage’s feet. The conceptual approach of the composer provided a way to look at the aesthetic and aural world in a different way. In Metz’s work, silence emerges in abstraction. His canvases emphasise the space between coloured forms. There are swathes of untreated ‘bare’ space in his work. His repetition of shapes against bare backgrounds across multiple canvases creates a kind of visual rhythm, not unlike the way musical notation exists in a score. There is a sense of subtle poetry in the results. Part of the artist’s intention is to explore the concept of authorship. Here material plays a role, as gravity and serendipity dictate the way his colours soak into the canvas. The painter’s work also responds and relates to architectural space. The space and structure of a gallery or exhibition space are vital components here: the gaps between works; the space between the viewer and the object. His work makes the experience of interior architecture shift, almost in a similar way to how sculpture forces the viewer to address their own physicality. Here, serial canvases feel durational. There is a sense of the marking of time recorded into visual gestures. The watery, soluble acrylic dye Metz uses stains and fixes quickly. The results are colours that seem to deepen in shade at their edges, absorbed into the canvas in different ways. Metz’s palette echoes his native Arizona — the dusty, desert shades of faded photographs. His colours almost appear like abstracted takes on the idea of the landscape. Part of the artist’s aim is to question the human outside status, projections of identity and cultural structures. To push the tension between the autonomous self and the ecological self. There is a sense of optimism or beauty in that shifting of the self away from the self-serving. Like Cage, a sense of the Zen points to directions away from consumption. Metz’s works have an intentionally experiential aspect to them.

Black Mountain College co-founder Anni Albers once described abstraction in a way that illuminates Metz’s work. “Wherever meaning has to be conveyed by means of form alone, where, for instance, no written language exists to impart descriptively such meaning, we find a vigour in this direct, formative communication often surpassing that of cultures that have other, additional methods of transmitting information.” 1 (Notably, Cage had been a student at this progressive institution four years prior to composing 4'33"). Albers had been referring to Mayan hieroglyphs, yet her call for abstract visual language can be seen in Metz’s work. Instead of figurative or written words, here poetry, rhythm and meaning emerge in the beauty of form.

1 On Weaving, Anni Albers, Studio Vista Publishers, London, 1974, p. 67

Landon Metz in conversation with Rosie Cooper

LM Where are you right now? RKC I’m at home, on the South Coast of England, in Hastings, right next to the sea. And you? Where are you? LM I’m in Manhattan — I moved from Brooklyn last year. My studio is on Canal Street and Cortlandt Alley. I’m right where Soho, Tribeca and Chinatown meet. It’s just the most New York location you could possibly imagine. RKC I wonder whether it’s going to be possible for you to travel to install your show in London.1 Given that space is so important to your practice, what’s it like for you to be absent when your exhibitions are being installed? LM I’ve been trying to work through themes found in site responsiveness in smaller terms, focusing on ways to use that sentiment within the paintings exclusively. RKC Something that strikes me about your work, and the way you present it, is a sense of embodiment. Your work seems to be a fundamental translation of your experience of the world. Although I’m a little reluctant to use the word, it seems like there’s a kind of channelling happening. LM Yeah. I think it comes from my hope that one can have a deeply empathetic encounter with one’s environment. Essentially, I’m totally invested in the possibility that one can be present in the world with curiosity, openness and awareness. Just looking, and allowing something to be what it is, can be incredibly enriching. I use my practice as a kind of tool for magnification. And I think that can be alarmingly simple sometimes: this is the scale of that wall, and this is the volume of the room in contrast to the scale of your body and your personhood. I find it exciting to drop those barriers that we all tend to accumulate through the course of our lives, and just try to have a raw experience with something. Of course, there’s an aesthetic vehicle for my work that could be read as formal, but it’s not that. I understand the visual languages of painting and sculpture, the narratives and precedents, but ultimately, I see all of that as just one part of a huge overarching ecosystem. I think that delicate, intricate web of interconnection is where my work is situated. Can I ask, what does the word channelling mean to you? What was it about that word that made you hesitant?

My nervousness probably stems from the spiritual associations. But I used it to describe an instinctual encounter, a feeling that’s translated in the most appropriate way — for you, that’s painting. Yes. Does this connect to your experience as a musician? My musician friends describe a state that you can get into when you’re playing, where you’re finding deep resonance with what or who is around you — sometimes other musicians, sometimes an audience, space or ambient sound. When that happens, something takes place in the body that connects you to everything or everyone around you. In your work, I feel that there’s a similar lack of differentiation between yourself and your materials. I also connect this to your use of dye rather than paint: dye soaks into the fabric and it becomes part of it — it isn’t a layer on top. To me, there’s a sense in your work of things moving together through space and time: you, the dye, and the canvas, and everything around. I’m really moved by everything you just said. I’ve been working with these materials for about ten years — always trying to get to a place where I could communicate something of what you’re saying, without words. It is like music, yes: the most emotional piece of music can take you on that journey. You can try and rationalise your way out of it as much as you want, add layers of interpretation and historical references, but truthfully, you are having that experience whether you like it or not. I grew up playing music. And in music, there really is that intuition you’ve described. Suddenly, everything syncs up and you just are, you let go, and you are enough. All this nonsense data, and hierarchy, and systems that you cast on your experience — none of that matters anymore. In my work, all the materials, myself and the space are formulating together, creating this synthesis. Sometimes I’ve found it challenging to talk about my work because it’s there to be experienced: if you know it, you know it. There’s nothing I can add to that. At the end of the day, I’m in my studio. And that’s all it is. I’m here and this is my experience, and I’m compelled to make what I make.

RKC

LM RKC

RKC Where did that compulsion to create come from? And how did that shift from music to art happen? LM I always liked the quiet, private life that came with playing music, and the three elements coming together: the instrument, you, and the tonalities you produce. A world, created. I always thought I’d be a musician. But then there was the touring, and the performing — the exhausting, incredibly exposed part. That intimate, physical moment of holding a violin, touching strings, touching keys and making sounds translated so well to painting. And I understood a lot about using silence, rhythm, space and time as a mode of communication, so that came through in my visual work, too — it just felt right to me. I love how I can go into my studio, make something, and then it’s done. And I can do it again, immediately. That alignment that happens through creating became something I could access more often as a visual artist than as a musician. I never see the paintings as completed. I make one, and then I put it in a pile. I don’t even look at it. And then I do it again. And that act of doing it is what I’m interested in: a dissolution of form into a state of being. That’s what I want. It’s a necessity. RKC Your exhibition titles extend your mode of being and noticing, in which you act as a sort of receiver.2 LM I’m glad they’re something you can pick up on. The word ‘receiver’ is appropriate. I’m always looking for little moments that are just poetic, that really sing. When you keep vulnerable to the world, things peek out from the noise. And when that happens, I write it down. I have a whole journal of these things. They may seem mundane, but to me they’re part of a pattern — an interconnectedness. Last night, at 10pm, I received a phone call from someone I met in Italy in 2014. I haven’t seen him since. It must have been around 4am there. And he said, “this song I heard reminded me of you, I want you to listen to it right now, with me, on the phone.” He said, “this is what you communicate to me with your painting.” And I said, “you can feel this much emotion through my painting?” And he said, “yes, absolutely. You’re a reflector. You’re not taking anything. You’re just reflecting. Just hear the song.

This came through me to you.” And then that was it. And then for you to call me today to say these things, out of the blue, something just clicks and connects. It feels floating, aligned, overflowing. Like I’m not in the way of life. And sometimes it’s there in the smallest of things, too — something that I notice in a bodega or just walking down this street. It’s all there. Just waiting.

1 At the time that this conversation happened, many COVID19 travel restrictions were still in place. 2 These titles in particular: It snowed and half a sphere accumulated on a post outside the window, Loyal, Stockholm, Sweden 2021 and , Andersen’s, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2017.

1 MMXXI LXII, 2021 acrylic dye on canvas, 80 × 128 in / 203.2 × 325.1 cm 2 MMXXI LXI, 2021 acrylic dye on canvas, 40 × 32 in / 101.6 × 81.3 cm 3 MMXXI LX, 2021 acrylic dye on canvas, 80 × 64 in / 203.2 × 162.6 cm 4 MMXXI LIX, 2021 acrylic dye on canvas, 80 × 256 in / 203.2 × 650.2 cm 5 MMXXI LVIII, 2021 acrylic dye on canvas, 40 × 32 in / 101.6 × 81.3 cm 6 MMXXI LVII, 2021 acrylic dye on canvas, 40 × 32 in / 101.6 × 81.3 cm 7 MMXXI LVI, 2021 acrylic dye on canvas, 40 × 32 in / 101.6 × 81.3 cm 8 MMXXI LV, 2021 acrylic dye on canvas, 40 × 32 in / 101.6 × 81.3 cm 9 MMXXI LIV, 2021 acrylic dye on canvas, 80 × 32 in / 203.2 × 81.3 cm

10 MMXXI LIII, 2021 acrylic dye on canvas, 80 × 128 in / 203.2 × 325.1 cm 11 MMXXI LII, 2021 acrylic dye on canvas, 20 × 64 in / 50.8 × 162.6 cm 12 MMXXI LI, 2021 acrylic dye on canvas, 20 × 64 in / 50.8 × 162.6 cm 13 MMXXI L, 2021 acrylic dye on canvas, 20 × 64 in / 50.8 × 162.6 cm 14 MMXXI XLIX, 2021 acrylic dye on canvas, 20 × 64 in / 50.8 × 162.6 cm

Landon Metz, born in 1985, Phoenix, Arizona Lives and works in Manhattan, New York Solo Exhibitions 2021

2020 2019 2018 2017

2016 2015 2014 2012 2011

Love Songs, Waddington Custot, London Euphoria, Von Bartha, Basel It snowed and a half sphere accumulated on a post outside the window, Loyal, Stockholm Clarity, Francesca Minini, Milan Three Eleven, Andersen’s, Copenhagen Landon Metz, Patrick De Brock Gallery, Knokke, Belgium Asymmetrical Symmetry, Sean Kelly, New York Feels So Right Now, Von Bartha, Basel Landon Metz, Museo Pietro Canonica a Villa Borghese, Rome Fourth Wall, Von Bartha, S-chanf, Switzerland At the bodega on the corner they have black plums 2 for $1 and cactus pears 2 for $1 and tangerines 2 for $1, Andersen’s, Copenhagen Quintets, VI, VII, Oslo &, Massimo Minini, Brescia, Italy &, Francesca Minini, Milan Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh, Andersen’s, Copenhagen Landon Metz, James Fuentes, New York Plose, ADN Collection, Bolzano, Italy Michael Jackson Penthouse, Hudson, New York Still, TORRI, Paris Something To Dance To, Preteen Gallery, Mexico City Duo Exhibitions

2021 2016 2013

Nineteen Eighty-Five: Landon Metz–Eva LeWitt, VI, VII, Oslo Morris Louis / Landon Metz, Kasmin, New York Shake Shack Guggenheim. Landon Metz–Ethan Cook, V1, Copenhagen

Group Exhibitions 2020 2017 2016 2015 2014

2013

2012 2011

blue., Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York Reflections: Open Ended, Gana Art, Seoul Corners / In Between, Norma Mangione, Turin Greffes, Villa Medici, Rome Five years of VI, VII, Independent Regence, Brussels Splotch, Sperone Westwater, New York Untitled, Printed Matter, New York The Essential Bruce Springsteen, Andersen’s, Copenhagen 173 E 94th St / Chausee de Waterloo 550, Kasmin at Middlemarch, Brussels From Pre-History to Post-Everything, Sean Kelly, New York La Chose Encadrée, SWG3, Glasgow International Biennial F(re)e Play, Stadium, New York La Suite, TORRI, Paris Organix, Luciano Benetton Collection, Venice Space Whole Karaoke, Middlemarch, Brussels Slowed & Throwed, Chinatown Arcade, New York Can’t Stop Rock Lobster, Shoot The Lobster, New York TLK DRTY, Amstel 41, Amsterdam Historia Mysteria, Renwick Gallery, New York Post Truth, Reference Art Gallery, Richmond Saint Lawrence Ice, Wolfe Island, Ontario Residencies

2014

ADN Collection, Bolzano, Italy Selected Publications

2016 2015 2014 2013 2012

Club to Club, Libraryman Landon Metz, Mousse West Street Studio, Libraryman True Translation, Christopher Shreck Painter Painting Surface, Vimmerby Rinkeby

Waddington Custot would like to thank Francesca Gavin and Rosie Cooper for their insightful written contributions to this publication, and Emiliano Granado and Shark Senesac for their photography. Above all, thank you to Hannah Metz and, of course, Landon. Landon Metz Love Songs 26 November 2021 – 26 January 2022 First published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by Waddington Custot. Waddington Custot 11 Cork Street London W1S 3LT Official copyright © 2021 Waddington Custot, London Artworks © Landon Metz, 2021 Studio images © Emiliano Granado, 2021 Artwork images © Shark Senesac, 2021 pp. 6 – 8 © Francesca Gavin, 2021 pp. 22 – 27 © Rosie Cooper, 2021 All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or other information storage and retrieval systems, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Edited by Louise Malcolm Designed by Atelier Dyakova, London Printed and bound in London by Boss Print ISBN 978-1-9164568-9-1 To find out more about Waddington Custot publications, please visit waddingtoncustot.com, where you can browse our catalogues and buy any titles that are of interest.

Landon Metz Love Songs