ContemporaryIdentities – Issue #4
International Art Magazine
Issue #4
Dezember 2019
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by Izmer Bin Ahmad
Fabian Matz creates soft objects using fine-mesh polyamide tights, a banal fashion accessory that assume sculptural dimensions by being stuffed with threedimensional forms. The artist is clearly interested in the corporeal effect conjured by a material that is most intimately bound to the body, contouring our various modes
of appearance and secrecy. While the bodily aspects of Matz’s exploration is arguably less representational in the pieces featured here compared to his other works, these abstract forms affirmatively allude to the flesh in their reference to ‘bodybuilding’ and ‘anatomy’. They render visible and sensible the artist’s investment in body deformations,
abstraction and the grotesque, which, together with the corporeal function, intimacy and secrecy of tights, expose the realms of the familiar and visible to that of absurdity and concealment. These objects are elegantly uncanny, vessels that are excreted into the world as witnesses to the pleasurable content of our dismay.
Izmer Bin Ahmad (Malaysia), teaches studio art at the College of Fine Arts & Design,
University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Trained as a practicing artist as well as
an academic researcher his professional activities encompass both studio practice and
academic writing.
