Matchstick Men

Wolfgang Stiller's Matchstick Men series consists of enormous matches shaped and burned to look like human heads, as well as matchboxes to scale. He gave an interview with Michael Corbin about the project, discussing the development and exhibition of his Matchstick Men. But it was this statement that grabbed my attention:

It might sound conservative, but I'm much more interested in matured artists and not so much into really young artists. Nowadays artists start showing right after graduating or even during their studies. The art world became a bit like the pop industry. One has to be "young and fresh."  No one wants to miss the newest trend.  I really don't care for that.  An artist needs time to develop his or her own language and to be quite frank, I think someone who is 23 rarely has anything substantial to offer.

Do you agree or disagree with Stiller?

Gallery and Interview -via Lustik


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Good, 23 year-old artists have "something substantial" to offer other 23 year-olds.

I deplore people saying "In my opinion" or " ... to me." because everyone's words should be assumed to be referring to themselves and not prescriptive to others. I would concur that young artists do not have much to offer a mature and accomplished artist such as Stiller.
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The match head guys are pretty cool, at least after they've been put out.

I think he's right. Artists have increasingly come to rely on self reference, building their own context within which their visual language, or vocabulary, has meaning and that definitely takes time.
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