Mat RAPPAPORT
resort 2019
Medium
single channel video, mini frame, and magnifying glass
Description
resort is a stop-motion animation and video comprised of an image collection which documents one section of one block of the Nazi designed resort at Prora, Germany. The magnifying glass invites viewers an aperture that through distortion, makes the small scale appear immersive.
resort is part of a larger body of work that uses Prora to explore the connection between mass tourism, architecture and ideology. The mammoth site at Prora was built to house 20,000 vacationing working class Germans. The intent was to use propaganda and the promise of leisure time to strengthen sympathies between the workers and the Nazi party. The site was never completed by the Nazis however the Socialist East German government completed the construction and used it as a military training site that also included a small officers resort. Currently the building is being redeveloped with a youth hostel and plans for apartments, condominiums and hotels.
A feature documentary about Prora is currently in post production.
Bio
Mat Rappaport is a Chicago based artist, curator, and educator known for works which utilize mobile video, performance, and photography to explore habitation, perception, and power as related to built environments. Recent projects include the range series of performances employing commercial trucks, augmented with external cameras that capture video from the surrounding environment, and screens onto which video is projected as the truck navigates the city. Sitting in the passenger seat of the truck, the artist “remixes” the environment in real time, performing a moving intervention into architectural space. range continues Mat Rappaport’s effort to shape the experience of urban environments through media-based interventions. In 2018, Rappaport developed the Range Mobile Lab, a platform for practice-based research based on a 1995 GMC delivery truck. The Range Mobile Lab serves to extend the range performances, architectural collaborations, and direct community engagement.
Rappaport’s work has been exhibited in the United States and internationally in museums, galleries, film festivals, and public spaces. Recent projects have been featured during the 500 Anniversary of the Jewish Ghetto in Venice, Italy, the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial, the 2017 and 2018 Ann Arbor Film Festival and performances with the Range Mobile Lab at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Block Museum at Northwestern University.
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