Charlotte Matter
Charlotte Matter is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zurich’s Institute of Art History, where she coordinates the specialized Master’s Art History in a Global Context. Her research interests include feminist discourses, postcolonial and transcultural approaches, materiality, disability theory, and the history of exhibitions.
Her doctoral thesis, titled “The Politics of Plastics: Feminist Approaches to New Materials in Art, 1960s and 1970s,” explored how women artists and critics challenged sexist discourses in art and claimed plastics as feminist substances. Drawing on research stays in Buenos Aires and Rome, it examined the works of Lea Lublin and Carla Accardi in particular, with further references to the practices of artists such as Nicola L, Margarita Paksa, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Alina Szapocznikow. It also considered the global boom of exhibitions on plastics and the discourse on these new industrial materials in art, juxtaposing the perspectives of critics such as Lucy R. Lippard and Pierre Restany.
Previously, Charlotte Matter completed a Master’s degree in art history and film studies at the University of Zurich, with a thesis on Hélio Oiticica’s Tropicália, comparing the contextual shifts of meaning between the two versions shown in Rio de Janeiro (1967) and in London (1969). During the academic year of 2019/2020, she was a research fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome and at the Istituto Svizzero di Roma.
She is the co-initiator of the research project “Rethinking Art History through Disability” and a founding member of CARAH – Collective for Anti-Racist Art History. Since 2023, she is also co-editor of Sculpture Journal (Liverpool University Press).
Her doctoral thesis, titled “The Politics of Plastics: Feminist Approaches to New Materials in Art, 1960s and 1970s,” explored how women artists and critics challenged sexist discourses in art and claimed plastics as feminist substances. Drawing on research stays in Buenos Aires and Rome, it examined the works of Lea Lublin and Carla Accardi in particular, with further references to the practices of artists such as Nicola L, Margarita Paksa, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Alina Szapocznikow. It also considered the global boom of exhibitions on plastics and the discourse on these new industrial materials in art, juxtaposing the perspectives of critics such as Lucy R. Lippard and Pierre Restany.
Previously, Charlotte Matter completed a Master’s degree in art history and film studies at the University of Zurich, with a thesis on Hélio Oiticica’s Tropicália, comparing the contextual shifts of meaning between the two versions shown in Rio de Janeiro (1967) and in London (1969). During the academic year of 2019/2020, she was a research fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome and at the Istituto Svizzero di Roma.
She is the co-initiator of the research project “Rethinking Art History through Disability” and a founding member of CARAH – Collective for Anti-Racist Art History. Since 2023, she is also co-editor of Sculpture Journal (Liverpool University Press).
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a reserved but influential personality on the Viennese art scene. This essay traces back his career, identifying the original traits of his output, the influences and the voracious passion for collecting African sculpture, which transformed his home into a system of narrow passages snaking through hundreds of artworks. Not ascribable to a specific movement or a particular era, the production of this fascinating outsider seems to exist out of time, evoking past and future without belonging to either.
Published in Mousse, n° 50, October 2015
Books
How can objects of art and architecture be viewed in a new or different way and which theoretical approaches can be useful in achieving this purpose? Which methods are suitable for discussing issues of transfer, mobility, migration and identity?
Fourteen essays address these and other questions by investigating various objects situated across different temporal and cultural contexts. Moving beyond antagonisms such as high and low or center and periphery, the essays focus instead on phenomena of translation, appropriation and site specificity.
Thesis
As my study shows, numerous critics and artists engaged at the time with plastics (along with other new materials) from a feminist perspective. One of my chapters engages with Lea Lublin, an artist working between Paris and Latin America, who used a wide variety of hard and soft plastics to address notions of labor and leisure. Another chapter analyzes the use of the transparent plastic Sicofoil in the works of Carla Accardi, an artist based in Rome, who explored the boundaries of the painterly medium and challenged this traditionally male-dominated field. Furthermore, my thesis considers the works of Evelyne Axell, Lynda Benglis, Tomaso Binga, Kiki Kogelnik, Nicola L, and Alina Szapocznikow to tackle how the materiality of plastics relates to feminist issues such as the commodification of women’s bodies, witchcraft, and the exclusionary politics of the Space Age.
Finally, my conclusion discusses the toxicity of plastics. I focus on the presumably personal experience of sickness to argue that illness is never only or simply personal, but rather deeply entangled in politics. The fact that numerous artists, such as Niki de Saint Phalle and Rebecca Horn, fell ill from their materials is an unmistakable indicator of systemic failures, ranging from industrial cover-ups and insufficient regulation in the name of neoliberalism to inadequate protection in art schools. The problem today is neither remedied nor limited to individuals, but rather concerns us all, with studies suggesting that traces of chemicals leached from plastics may be found in almost all tested bodies. Thus, while the scope of my study is delimited to the 1960s and 1970s, many of the issues raised—including the politics of inclusion and exclusion, gendered conceptions of production and reproduction, corporate patronage and artwashing, and notions of care and vulnerability—are of utmost relevance today.
a reserved but influential personality on the Viennese art scene. This essay traces back his career, identifying the original traits of his output, the influences and the voracious passion for collecting African sculpture, which transformed his home into a system of narrow passages snaking through hundreds of artworks. Not ascribable to a specific movement or a particular era, the production of this fascinating outsider seems to exist out of time, evoking past and future without belonging to either.
Published in Mousse, n° 50, October 2015
How can objects of art and architecture be viewed in a new or different way and which theoretical approaches can be useful in achieving this purpose? Which methods are suitable for discussing issues of transfer, mobility, migration and identity?
Fourteen essays address these and other questions by investigating various objects situated across different temporal and cultural contexts. Moving beyond antagonisms such as high and low or center and periphery, the essays focus instead on phenomena of translation, appropriation and site specificity.
As my study shows, numerous critics and artists engaged at the time with plastics (along with other new materials) from a feminist perspective. One of my chapters engages with Lea Lublin, an artist working between Paris and Latin America, who used a wide variety of hard and soft plastics to address notions of labor and leisure. Another chapter analyzes the use of the transparent plastic Sicofoil in the works of Carla Accardi, an artist based in Rome, who explored the boundaries of the painterly medium and challenged this traditionally male-dominated field. Furthermore, my thesis considers the works of Evelyne Axell, Lynda Benglis, Tomaso Binga, Kiki Kogelnik, Nicola L, and Alina Szapocznikow to tackle how the materiality of plastics relates to feminist issues such as the commodification of women’s bodies, witchcraft, and the exclusionary politics of the Space Age.
Finally, my conclusion discusses the toxicity of plastics. I focus on the presumably personal experience of sickness to argue that illness is never only or simply personal, but rather deeply entangled in politics. The fact that numerous artists, such as Niki de Saint Phalle and Rebecca Horn, fell ill from their materials is an unmistakable indicator of systemic failures, ranging from industrial cover-ups and insufficient regulation in the name of neoliberalism to inadequate protection in art schools. The problem today is neither remedied nor limited to individuals, but rather concerns us all, with studies suggesting that traces of chemicals leached from plastics may be found in almost all tested bodies. Thus, while the scope of my study is delimited to the 1960s and 1970s, many of the issues raised—including the politics of inclusion and exclusion, gendered conceptions of production and reproduction, corporate patronage and artwashing, and notions of care and vulnerability—are of utmost relevance today.
Mit dem vorliegenden Leitfaden möchten wir nicht nur aufzeigen, wie rassistische Sicht- und Arbeitsweisen sowie Sprachkomplexe in die kunstwissenschaftliche Arbeit, Lehre, Forschung und in das universitäre Umfeld eingeschrieben sind, sondern ein konkretes Angebot für die Etablierung antirassistischer und inklusiver Denk- und Handlungsmuster machen. Im Folgenden denken wir über race im Hinblick auf die Produktion und Rezeption von Kunst nach, dies nicht zuletzt in Verbindung mit anderen Differenzkategorien wie Klasse, Geschlechtsidentität, Sexualität, Religionszugehörigkeit, körperliche und geistige Fähigkeiten und Beeinträchtigungen. Nur so können zukunftsorientierte, auf Diversität und Teilhabe fokussierende, antirassistische Vorgehensweisen in der Kunstgeschichte angestossen werden. Wir verfolgen daher einen offenen und dialogbasierten Ansatz, um Studierenden, aber auch Lehrenden des Faches ein Arbeitspapier zu reichen, das Orientierung geben und Anregung für neue Blickwinkel, Erwartungen und Beziehungen sein kann. Wir verstehen den Leitfaden als einen ersten Vorschlag, der unsere – ebenfalls suchende – Position widerspiegelt.