Leah Capaldi, Big Slit

About

Matt’s Gallery is delighted to open its Bermondsey space with Big Slit, a new work developed by Leah Capaldi during and in response to the successive lockdowns that have taken place across the UK over the last year.

Big Slit pulls together elements of sculpture, installation, performance and moving image, drawing on a range of themes recurrent in the artist’s practice. The work exists at the slippery intersection of sculpture and performance, rotating the roles of subject and object through surveillance and spectatorship.

A static body is in a state of continuous performance. Restricted from view, broadcast live. The work aims to amalgamate real life performance and live broadcast circulating the sticky shared reality in between.

Capaldi’s interventions into the space imply a degree of violence. They remain minimal yet puncture the space, altering how we move through it.

Big Slit exists between the exhibition at the gallery and a live feed broadcast online at mattsgallery.org. Both visitors and performer will be recorded by CCTV during opening hours.

The work offers a new dimension to Capaldi’s exploration of performance sculpture - an active state that takes place at the interface between live body, moving image and object.

Big Slit will be accompanied by Q5, the fifth instalment in our ongoing series of artist interviews.

Booking your visit:

Please book your fifteen-minute time slot at www.mattsgallery.org/booking.php

To ensure the safety of our visitors, artists & staff, visitors to the gallery will be required to wear a face covering, unless you are exempt from doing so. If you do not have a mask, we will provide one free of charge.

For further information or visual material please contact us on 020 7237 0398 or email info@mattsgallery.org. For same-day bookings, please call the gallery.

Matt’s Gallery thanks the Arts Council England and Ron Henocq Fine Art for their generous support.