Artist
Mathias Kessler
Mathias Kessler, born in 1968 in Kempten, Austria, lives and works in New York and Frankfurt. He holds a master’s degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York. He uses photography, film, installation, painting, and digital media to stage natural processes. His work draws on art history, philosophy, and environmental debates to question the oppositions between nature and culture, and between representation and experience.
He has presented his work at Kunsthal Rotterdam (2015), the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (2017), and the Kirchner Museum Davos (2018).
West Virginia Mining Landscape - Voie verte
West Virginia Mining Landscape is an immersive installation by Mathias Kessler that transforms the exhibition space into a total landscape, immersing visitors in a territory deeply scarred by mining. The work consists of more than sixty aerial photographs assembled using a cartographic algorithm, creating a continuous image that unfolds across the walls and floor.
This slightly blurred visual surface oscillates between several registers: it evokes the precision of satellite imagery, digital cartography, and historical landscape painting. This ambiguity disrupts perception and questions the boundary between document and constructed vision.
By completely enveloping the space, the installation erases familiar landmarks. As the viewer walks through the image, they become an integral part of the scene. They assume a commanding vantage point, overlooking trucks, rubble, excavations, and fractured mountains, while remaining physically immersed in this transformed landscape.
Presented in a specific context such as the Greenway Tunnel, the work engages in a dialogue with its environment. Rather than depicting a distant catastrophe, West Virginia Mining Landscape directly confronts the viewer with the visible traces of human intervention. The work transforms contemplation into a physical experience, engaging the body in a reflection on the environmental transformations and the logic of exploitation that shape these territories.
West Virginia Mining Landscape - Villa du Parc
West Virginia Mining Landscape is an immersive installation by Mathias Kessler that transforms the exhibition space into a total landscape, immersing visitors in a territory deeply scarred by mining. The work consists of more than sixty aerial photographs assembled using a cartographic algorithm, creating a continuous image that unfolds across the walls and floor.
This slightly blurred visual surface oscillates between several registers: it evokes the precision of satellite imagery, digital cartography, and historical landscape painting. This ambiguity disrupts perception and questions the boundary between document and constructed vision.
By completely enveloping the space, the installation erases familiar landmarks. As the viewer walks through the image, they become an integral part of the scene. They assume a commanding vantage point, overlooking trucks, rubble, excavations, and fractured mountains, while remaining physically immersed in this transformed landscape.
Presented in a specific context such as this one, in an exhibition space at the Villa du Parc, the work engages directly with its surroundings. Indoors, shifts in perspective at the junction of wall and floor destabilize the viewer’s orientation, creating a holistic image that invites viewers to experience the landscape physically.
Rather than depicting a distant catastrophe, West Virginia Mining Landscape directly confronts the viewer with the visible traces of human intervention. The work transforms contemplation into a physical experience, engaging the body in a reflection on the environmental transformations and the logic of exploitation that shape these territories.
