Mathieu Zurstrassen is a trained architect who from 2013 embraces the path of visual arts entirely. In designing objects, he moves away from the projection of drawing and focuses on the experimentation of construction. He infuses his work with added value, symbolic and philosophical, about the quality of the invisible and the relationships that are thus created between sender and receiver. He uses the codes and uses of the art craft to solve plastic questions located at the borders of the unspeakable. Mathieu Zurstrassen's work is highly technical and combines the ambiguity of materials with a poetic thought made of humor and delicacy.
He has since exhibited in various events, galleries and festivals such as the KIKK Festival, Ars Electronica, Centre Wallonie Bruxelles Paris, Art Brussels and the Venice Biennale in 2019.
In the panorama of Belgian and international digital arts, or more broadly of contemporary arts willingly integrating today's technologies, Mathieu Zurstrassen occupies a special place. Driven by a flourishing imagination, a passion for the artifact and a transhistorical reflection, he has produced, in a few years, an impressive body of work (mostly installation) that follows in the footsteps of the great troublions of 20th century art history, assumes their references and takes a critical look at our disoriented society with, as an attractive weapon, a humor that is all too rare in this field.
This year again, three of his works have been selected for the Ars Electronica festival (Linz). He summons the situationist Guy Debord, the muse of the dada movement Elsa Von Freytag Loringhoven and behavioral analysis. At the intersection and beyond, there is a poetic world whose extrapolations, overflows and hybridizations also speak to us of our own.
Phillipe franck - Turbulences Video Oct-20
Zurstrassen Kinetics:
Mathieu Zurstrassen loves machines, which leads him to make with a luxury of invention, machines that can sometimes seem completely useless. With a combination of anthropomorphic ornaments and complex mechanical devices he gives birth to astonishing hybrid creations.
Is all this just a rather clever, brilliant, but gratuitous game? No, by moving away from our daily reality filled with devices, by diverting them, he reveals a mutant universe. Art is always a game with matter and time and Zurstrassen plays with our perceptions, the ephemeral and the lasting.
RAISE Studio:
Raise Studio is a design and fabrication studio primarily focused on the contemporary and technological art world.
From sketches to prototypes or finished products, Raise Studio is with you every step of the way.