Matt Bollinger's Collage Paintings Chronicle Forced Decline of Middle-Class Youth

Matt Bollinger's series 'The Reservoir' at Galerie Zürcher in Paris (March 15–May 10, 2014) depicts the melancholic reality of educated middle-class youth facing forced economic decline. Bollinger creates complex collage paintings by applying gouache to paper, cutting and assembling them on canvas or tarpaulin, then adding collaged elements. The titular work 'The Reservoir' shows a dilapidated bookstore where books are left to the elements, symbolizing a reservoir of culture. The paintings evoke Dorothea Lange's Depression-era photos but replace destitute farmers with cultured young people struggling with precarious jobs and housing. Bollinger references cubism, trompe-l'oeil (like Edwaert Collier), and David Hockney's reversed perspective. In 'White Out', a Rauschenberg-like composition mixes real collaged objects with painted ones, including a fully painted newspaper (unlike cubists who used real ones). 'Fahrenheit 451' alludes to François Truffaut's film about book preservation, while 'Odyssey at the Reservoir' shows a blindfolded girl shielding her eyes with a copy of Homer's Odyssey. The series includes historical references like Colonel Myles Keogh's tomb from the Battle of Little Big Horn. Bollinger's work combines formal mastery with political commentary on the broken American dream.