American Interiors.
American Interiors depicts the psychological repercussions of war and military service through images of the interiors of cars owned by USA veterans.
Through working with veterans over five years, Casteel became aware of the subtle indicators of past traumatic experience. He also recognized that the condition in which we live can often be a signifier of our well-being and that even the state of car interiors can be a manifestation of human interiors.
American Interiors explores the area between “the circumstantial and the evident,” and it is in the space that separates the slickly produced military recruitment ads from the statistics about rates of veteran homelessness and suicide that this work resides.
Casteel balances the empathy he feels for those who have survived the military experience, with a deep sense of outrage towards America’s industrial, military complex, and the institutionalized violence of warfare American born, Matthew Casteel is an award-winning photographer and educator whose work focuses on the perils and triumphs of the human condition. He went to Hartford Art School International Limited Photography program and gained an MFA in Photography in 2015.
His work has been featured in national and international galleries, as well as in TIME Magazine, The Washington Post, CNN, the Guardian, amongst other publications.
Casteel’s first book, AMERICAN INTERIORS, was released by Dewi Lewis Publishing in 2018, featuring essays written by Jörg Colberg and Ken MacLeish.
Curator: Nicolas HAVETTE
Hey! What’s Going On?
from July 1st to September 22nd 2019
Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation
18 rue de la Calade, Arles
