Details from Heaven and Hell is the new chapter of Matt Mullican's cosmology, whose first models dates from 1973, and has evolved over the years and materialized in various media and performances.
Mullican's famous cosmological charts give shape to a personal epistemological system defined as “five worlds,” consisting respectively of the worlds of pure matter; objects; the arts; language; and mental activity. Acting in the world of signs and terms, the artist compiles here his life view through sixty-four apparently crystal clear statements, only coincidentally matching his present age. The text takes a circular form where birth and death—in the material and spiritual sense—culminate at the same point, creating a repeatable and continuing life cycle.
Published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, from May 8 to October 16, 2016.
Peep-Hole Sheet is a quarterly of
writings by artists published by
Mousse Publishing until 2016. Each issue is dedicated solely to one artist, who is invited to contribute with an unpublished text whose content is completely free in terms both of subject and format. The texts are published in their original language, with accompanying translations in English and Italian.
Peep-Hole Sheet is meant for those who believe artists are catalysts for ideas all around us, and who want to read their words without any filter. Over time it aspires to build up an anthology of writings that might open new perspectives for interpreting and understanding our times.
Working in the fields of performance, installation, digital technology and sculpture, Matt Mullican (born 1951 in Santa Monica, lives an works in New York) is seeking to develop a cosmological model based on a personal vocabulary combining the formal and the symbolic. Hypnosis and cartography are his principal modes of operation. He explores functional sign systems of his own devising through activities under hypnosis, in a permanent oscillation between the real and its schematization, between fiction and its physical reality.
