In a contemporary landscape dominated by the homogenisation and predictability of art, Matteo Rattini acts as a critical investigator of the commodification of expression. Through reproduction and forgery, the work presented at ReA Art Fair challenges the privileged status of art objects, proposing new ‘originals’ that disrupt traditional historical narratives and expose modern structures of control.
By redefining forgery – from dishonest replication to a radical, political tactic of resistance, just one facet of Matteo’s research – the work prompts us to ask where the boundaries between legality and art might lie. Rather than regarding the copy as an imitation of lesser value, Rattini elevates forgery into a form of ideological ‘smuggling’, introducing illegally replicated forms into protected art institutions in order to expose their structural vulnerabilities.
The two works feature altered photographs of an easily recognisable Milanese landscape, dating from the nineteenth century, when demand for souvenir images began to spread. Produced using the calotype process, one of the earliest photographic printing techniques, each photograph contains an illicit substance dissolved into it during the painstaking development process: 2-MMC, a laboratory-made substitute for amphetamines commonly sold online. A label affixed to the glass specifies its chemical formula, mass and the quantity of the substance contained within the work.
Set in brass frames, the photographs are suspended above a disorderly pile of clothing and underwear, as though discovered inside luggage during drug searches. The installation alludes to the contemporary use of artworks and images as unsuspected means of transporting illegal substances across borders and legal thresholds, echoing cases in which prisoners have received drugs dissolved into family photographs or postcards.
Matteo Rattini (b. 2001) is a multimedia artist whose work investigates the commodification of contemporary imagery. He studied at IUAV University of Venice and the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam. Moving between 3D graphics, sculpture and performance, his practice embraces stylistic inconsistency, transforming forgery, seriality and replication into critical tools for dismantling institutional control and standardising global structures. His work has been exhibited in Italy and the Netherlands.
Text by Silvia Laurelli