Frieze London, Regent’s Park
Walter & Zoniel x MATCHESFASHION
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October 2nd - 6th 2019

British artistic duo, Walter & Zoniel, continue their ongoing partnership with MATCHESFASHION for Frieze London 2019. Known for both their conceptual works as well as their immersive public artworks, Walter & Zoniel weave these two elements together with a colourful, interactive and layered installation that creates a virtual and physical bridge between Regents Park, MATCHESFASHION.COM, and MATCHESFASHION’s flagship townhouse 5 Carlos Place.

At the centre of their collaboration sits a new work, the WZ.RAINBOWCAM, a giant format box camera at Frieze London that invites users to playfully ‘photograph’ themselves pressed against a wall of rainbow-coloured flatbed scanners. These images are then sewn together as an abstracted collage and sent to screens in the booth, as well as to the sitter’s email. With a shallow depth of focus, close contact to the screens is required welcoming playful contortions. These intense close-ups, each one filtered through a different colour, capture a unique portrait of users individually, and also as a group if desired.

The artists use their favoured means – joy, humour, surrealism and beauty – to pose deeper questions. The installation is aimed to light-heartedly entice people to use it whilst also exploring issues of intimacy, privacy, and exhibitionism. These layers are accessible through both engagement and observation of the camera. Colourful transparent camera walls allow an audience to watch as each portrait is taken. With social media and digital means driving the proliferation of the ‘self-portrait’ the WZ.RAINBOWCAM asks us to consider what constitutes a portrait and what role privacy and exhibitionism plays in the current creation of a photograph. As with all their giant format cameras, the artists put the inner workings of this digital installation on display. This act of demystification and yet inaccessibility draws a parallel between our modern relationship with digital photography and the way people engaged with photography when it was first discovered. We are just as attracted to the creation of this mystical art as we have always been.

Alongside this dynamic, digital installation clients will also have the unique opportunity to commission Walter & Zoniel to create an unparalleled photographic portrait at 5 Carlos Place. Using their famed WZBOX camera, a walk-in camera obscura with integrated darkroom, the artists will create unique life-sized photographic portraits that embody an otherworldly beauty. With this camera, Walter & Zoniel have captured a diverse range of subjects from Eddie Redmayne to Lindsay Lohan to street youths in London’s East End The process, which does not use a negative, is completely unique. Photographic paper is directly exposed inside the giant camera, as the subject sits outside facing the lens. Inspired by historic photographic processes, yet completely contemporary, these meticulously hand-painted and gilded life-size portraits show their subjects in a new light. Bearing the marks of its creation – striations, brush strokes and fingerprints – and absent of digital retouching, these portraits challenging the idea that beauty is synonymous with perfection.

The collaborative duo Walter & Zoniel work across multiple media, including photography, installation, sculpture, film and performance. Referencing early photographs such as salt prints, ambrotypes and tintypes they have developed their own unique techniques that capture the lives of their subjects in unprecedented ways. Aiming to make their art accessible, Walter & Zoniel have exhibited and performed in diverse locations, ranging from the Venice Biennale, National Portrait Gallery and Tate Britain to warehouses and West End clubs.