Matt Retallick
Lecturer, Art History and Curating
Matt Retallick (Art Historian / Curator) is a Lecturer of Art History and Curating at Manchester School of Art. His research interests are broadly situated within a range of issues connected to modernism. He is interested in the slippages and transitional moments between art and artists, artistic movements, and ideologies. His research examines hidden or little-known modernisms and aims to reframe standard art historical accounts. This includes a particular expertise in St Ives and Cornish modernism, but also British, Irish, and German contexts more widely.
Matt is currently in the process of completing his PhD (2023), the first in-depth scholarly study of the German / Cornish painter Karl Weschke (1925-2005).
He has worked in a curatorial capacity at a number of well-known cultural institutions, and galleries both public and commercial. In 2023, he became Curating Subject Lead at Manchester School of Art; his most recent curatorial projects include:
(Curator) Kevin Hunt (lowkey)
KARST, Plymouth, 30th June – 27th August 2022
(Curator) Belgrave St Ives Summer Exhibition
Belgrave St Ives, 6th – 31st August 2022
(Curator) Half Awake: Joe O’Rourke & Parham Ghalamdar
Bankley Gallery, Manchester, 15th April – 1st May 2022
(Co-Curator) Irish modernisms: legacies of modernism in the north, CCA Derry-Londonderry, 29th May – 18th September 2021
His most recent research projects include focusses on:
Sven Berlin, Michel Majerus, Georg Kolbe, Tony O’Malley.
From academic year 2023/24, Matt will welcome enquires from prospective PhD students in all of these stated or related areas:
St Ives modernism
Cornish modernism / visual culture
British modernism / visual culture
Irish modernism / visual culture
German modernism / visual culture
Anglo-German modernism
German art (1920s – 1990s)
Art and subculture in divided Berlin (1961-1989)
The Austrian / Viennese avant-garde
Qualifications:
MA Social Sculpture, Oxford Brookes (2014)
BA (Hons) Curation, Central Saint Martins (2009)
Professional Activities:
Membership of the Visual Culture Research Group (MMU), International Council of Museums (ICOM), British Art Network (Tate / Paul Mellon / Yale), and he is an honorary lifetime member of the Modernist Society (UK). Matt also writes for publications such as Art UK.