FRENCH PLACE is an art organisation and an incubator for critical contemporary practices. Operating as a proto–institution — situated between an art foundation and a gallery — we support experimentation, foster exchange, and offer time and space for collaboration.
Founded at 9 French Place, Shoreditch, London — FRENCH PLACE enters its next chapter in Milan, where our programme extends across exhibitions, an artist residency, and research–driven initiatives that support deep engagement with contemporary practice.
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EXHIBITION,
Matthias Odin, CIMA 12.03.26—19.04.26
Installation views, CIMA, 2026, courtesy of FRENCH PLACE & the artist, ph. Francesco PaleariInstallation views, CIMA, 2026, courtesy of FRENCH PLACE & the artist, ph. Francesco PaleariInstallation views, CIMA, 2026, courtesy of FRENCH PLACE & the artists, ph. Francesco PaleariInstallation views, CIMA, 2026, courtesy of FRENCH PLACE & the artists, ph. Francesco PaleariInstallation views, CIMA, 2026, courtesy of FRENCH PLACE & the artists, ph. Francesco PaleariInstallation views, CIMA, 2026, courtesy of FRENCH PLACE & the artists, ph. Francesco PaleariInstallation views, CIMA, 2026, courtesy of FRENCH PLACE & the artist, ph. Francesco PaleariInstallation views, CIMA, 2026, courtesy of FRENCH PLACE & the artist, ph. Francesco Paleari
From Thursday 12 March to Sunday 19 April 2026 FRENCH PLACE is proud to present CIMA, Matthias Odin’s first solo
exhibition in Italy, with a critical text by Arnold Braho. The show displays a new body of works realised during the
artist’s residency at FRENCH PLACE, closely linked to Milan’s identity and heritage. After a month of wandering the city
and discovering its abandoned sites, Matthias Odin transforms the venue into an archaeological museum for
contemporary forgetfulness, reminding us that nothing stays permanent forever.
At the origin of the project lies a weapons factory decommissioned at the end of the last century. Moss and water slowly
reclaim the space; wooden crates rise in unstable formations; technical drawings and computers lie scattered across the
floor in disordered arrangements. On one of the crates appears a label: “CIMA (Anonymous Material Identification Tag).”
It is from this encounter that the exhibition project takes shape. The military crates are taken up by Matthias Odin as both
formal matrix and conceptual device, to be reworked through a process of sculptural translation. If at first the artist was
unable to name what he was confronting — struck by the aesthetic shock produced by the discovery — the revelation of
the factory’s actual nature radically transformed his perception. What had appeared as a mute and empty shell could no
longer be observed innocently once recognized as a component of a military infrastructure. The exhibition thus assumes
an intrinsically political dimension.
Abandoned at a historical moment that seemed to herald a retreat from large-scale conflict, the crates re-emerge today
under radically altered conditions. Presented as ruins, they are stripped of their function and subjected to a
museographic recontextualization that suspends their original purpose, repositioning them as forms to be contemplated
rather than used. No longer instruments, they become minimal sculptures, suspended between abstraction and
testimony — traces of something that persists without ever fully returning.
Matthias Odin’s practice is grounded in walking, searching, and collecting. Informed by urban exploration, Situationist
psychogeography, and Stalker’s theory of promenadology, his methodology entails direct engagement with locations and
materials. He intervenes at the threshold where objects transition from use to obsolescence, identifying within this
condition a latent sculptural potential. The resulting works function as near-readymades, minimally yet decisively
rearticulated.
Glass plays a central role within this process. Associated with postmodern architecture, it introduces distance, reflection,
and refraction, implicating the viewer while rendering the works responsive to light and atmospheric variation. Like a star
that continues to radiate after its death, the works sustain a residual luminosity, from which emerges an inquiry into
survival and transformation: how forms and histories persist beyond their original function. Curatorial Text by Arnold Braho
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