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It’s the Wine Talking
Matthew Brannon
2016
It’s the Wine Talking, 2016
DVD: HD NTSC, 10:00 minutes
“Art is a productive frustration and a pleasant irritation,” Brannon explains in an ideal introduction to the work created by the artist for the prize. His work takes the form of a video dedicated to wine culture in the United States, where tasting Italian wine is an all-round experience and drinking means coming into contact with the landscape, art and gastronomy of the “real” Italy.
The artist stages this approach inside a restaurant: a waiter offers two guests some wine, described using a language that is excessive and sometimes absurd, as the artist shows its paradoxical and grotesque aspects. “My personal relationship with wine,” explains the artist, “concerns the discordance between its intoxicating effects and its promotion by connoisseurs. I wanted to use humour in the most serious way possible in my work.”
The Artist 
Matthew Brannon
He was born in St. Maries, Idaho, USA, in 1971. He lives and works in New York. Matthew Brannon’s work starts from a reflection on the history and evolution of advertising graphics reinterpreted by the artist as he investigates their limits and potential, relating them to contemporary reality.
The main solo shows include:
2015 The Rules Are Not the Rules, Casey Kaplan, New York; 2013 Department Store at Night (Five Impossible Films, I), Marino Marini Museum, Florence; 2008 The Question is a Compliment, Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York; 2007 Where Were We, Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, New York; Try & be Grateful, AGYU, Art Gallery at York University, Toronto; 2005 Meat Eating Plants, David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles; 2004 Exhausted Blood & Imitation Salt, John Connelly Presents, New York; 2003 Tatum O’Neal's Birthday Party, Kevin Bruk Gallery, Miami; 2000 Soft Rock, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin.