2014 Catalogue Archive

Two crumpled and torn sheets come together to form this wall-mounted mask by LA-based Matthew Monahan. Like many of Monahan’s works, Basho offers up a meditation on both the properties of materials and the psychological potential of the figure. Here, the work’s original material is lost as the piece is cast in bronze, leaving traces of texture and the screws that held it together. Named after Japanese poet Matsuo Basho – a master of haiku poetry during the Edo period – the work possesses the elegance, purity, and mystery of a poem. Monahan’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; and LA MoCA. His work was included in the 2006 Whitney Biennial, the 2006 Berlin Biennale, and the 2013 Venice Biennale, and is featured in the collections of Art Institute of Chicago; Bojimans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; LA MoCA; MoMA, New York; and Tate Modern, London.