Material matters: painting and its materialities

Abstract

"Material can be symbolic and coded. Our experience of a medium's temporality becomes apparent only through our knowledge of its material behaviour. As the world becomes ever more digital and physically removed, we rely on a lot of materials (technical equipment, tools and infrastructures) to facilitate the remote accessibility of images. And yet, as we become more physically removed, our fascination with 'real' stuff increases. The texts in Material Matters represent a great diversity of practices and materials, but also the diversity of meanings suggested by the book's title. They address the materials needed for the implementation of tasks, the material out of which things are made, the material for or subject matter of scholarly work, and matter itself: the raw materials of our surroundings. The contributions to the book intersect across a number of concerns: the lifespan of materials (from their creation to their preservation), the interaction between painting and other types of material, and the ways that meaning is carried within the materials and matter that artists work with and make work about. Painting, and the media it is in dialogue with, is shown here to be sensuous, palpable and corporeal as well as responsive to the theoretical and socio-political dimensions conveyed by its materials."