[spectre] 13 Most Beautiful Avatars

[Franco Mattes]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


February 17 - March 17, 2007
EVA and FRANCO MATTES (a.k.a. 0100101110101101.ORG)
"13 Most Beautiful Avatars"
Postmasters Gallery, New York
Opening reception: Saturday February 17, 6-8 p-m



Postmasters Gallery is pleased to present "13 Most Beautiful Avatars," 
a portrait series from Second Life by EVA and FRANCO MATTES (a.k.a. 
0100101110101101.ORG), for their second solo show at the gallery.

The Matteses have been living in the virtual world, Second Life, for 
over a year, exploring its terrain and interacting with its peculiar 
inhabitants. The result of their "video-game flanerie" is a series of 
portraits, entitled "13 Most Beautiful Avatars." Not unlike Warhol's 
entourage of stars, captured in the "13 Most Beautiful Boys" and "13 
Most Beautiful Women" portrait series, the Matteses' "13 Most Beautiful 
Avatars" captures the most visually dynamic and celebrated "stars" of 
Second Life.

The portraits reflect Second Life aesthetics, featuring the bright 
colors, "artificial" light, broad flat areas, 3D shapes, and surreal 
perspectives that are typical of this virtual world. Overall, the 
series draws on the technological developments which allow the creation 
of alternate identities within simulated worlds. Despite the relative 
newness of using video game-derived source materials, the avatars' 
icons recall questions common to earlier eras of portraiture, including 
the cultural and psychological context of the images, and the 
relationships between high art and subculture, between contemporary art 
and "traditional" art forms, and between art and life itself.

The project was created during the artists' stay at The Italian Academy 
for Advanced Studies at Columbia University. The Matteses are the 
recipients of 2006 New York Prize for most promising young Italian 
Artists.
A portfolio of prints produced by Jean-Yves Noblet Contemporary Prints 
will also be available.

Born in 1976, Eva and Franco Mattes, (a.k.a. 0100101110101101.ORG) have 
been pioneers in the net.art movement remixing famous digital art 
pieces and performing Life Sharing: a real-time digital self portrait, 
during which they even submitted to satellite surveillance for an 
entire year. In the last decade they have created unpredictable 
mass-scale performances staged outside the traditional art venues and 
involving an unaware audience, where truth and falsehood mix to the 
point of being indistinguishable. They created and released the code 
for a computer virus, erected fake architectural heritage signs, run 
media campaigns for non-existent action movies (United We Stand), and 
even convinced the entire populace of Vienna that Nike had purchased 
the city's historic Karlsplatz and was about to rename it "Nikeplatz". 
Their controversial performances, often bordering on illegality, have 
been widely discussed in the media earning them the name "Bonnie and 
Clyde of Contemporary Art". Their works have been shown internationally 
including: Collection Lambert, Avignon; Fondazione Pitti Discovery, 
Florence; Lentos Museum of Modern Art, Linz; New Museum of Contemporary 
Art, New York; ICC, Tokyo; Manifesta 4, Frankfurt; Galleria Civica di 
Arte Contemporanea, Trento and the Venice Biennale.

For more information on the Second Life project and an interview with 
the artists:
http://www.0100101110101101.org



Postmasters Gallery located at 459 west 19th street between 9 and 10 
Avenues is open Tuesday through Saturday 11 – 6 pm
Please contact Magdalena Sawon with questions and image requests
www.postmastersart.com    e-mail : postmasters at thing.net