Matt Smith’s tapestries and ceramics challenge history

A collection of works by Matt Smith are on display at 99 Bishopsgate in London, including two textiles pieces by the artist, who is better known as a ceramicist.

For the series Trouble with History, Smith reworked vintage tapestries by unpicking and restitching elements – often faces – to illustrate how historical narratives are never objective accounts of truth, alluding to the marginalisation of queer people in society. His work often reshapes objects from their original uses to highlight marginalised points of view and hidden stories.

Brookfield Properties bought two of these tapestries, as well as four of Smith’s ceramic pieces that also challenge the notion of history as fixed, during the Collect art fair from Cynthia Corbett Gallery, as part of the Brookfield Properties Crafts Council Collection Acquisition Prize. It has since gifted the works to the Crafts Council Collection, and the two organisations have worked with the artist to put together this exhibition of 20 pieces at 99 Bishopgate.

‘It's seldom that you get to see work spanning a ten-year period together in one space,’ Smith says. ‘I'm looking forward to seeing how the works speak to each other – what has remained constant and what has changed.’