Martin, Matthieu. Matthieu Martin: Cover Up.

Corlet, 2014. Essay by Denys Riout in French and English. Edition of 1,000. Wraps, 80 pages, color photographs of painted walls. Scarce. Like new except slight crimp near bottom edge of front cover. 

Born in 1986 in Bayeux, Normandy, Matthieu Martin is a French visual artist and photographer known for exploring public space, modern architecture, and the intersection between urban landscapes and institutional art. After graduating from the École Supérieure d'Arts et Médias (ésam) in Caen in 2011, Martin developed a multidisciplinary practice spanning photography, drawing, sculpture, performance, and video art. His work frequently examines subtle interventions in public environments, street art histories, and erased urban signatures—exemplified by works like his 2014 artist's book Cover Up, which joined Ed Ruscha’s Books & Co. collection. Having completed international residencies across Mexico, Russia, Germany, and France, Martin splits his time between studios in Berlin and Bayeux. His artworks and photographic series are included in notable public collections, such as the Frac Normandie in Caen and Rouen and the National Center for Contemporary Arts in Yekaterinburg.

Cover Up is an ongoing conceptual photography project by French artist Matthieu Martin that began in 2009. The work explores the unintended artistic and socio-political dialogue created by the removal of graffiti in major global metropolises.

Key Focus Areas

• The Erasure Performance: The project documents the common municipal practice of city cleaning companies and authorities overpainting illegal graffiti. Rather than framing this as mere maintenance, Martin spotlights it as a territorial power play between municipal authorities and subcultures.

• Accidental Abstraction: The core visual thesis explores how the hasty patches of mismatched paint, applied with rollers to cover tags, inadvertently function as contemporary art. Martin traces how these blocks of color reference the history of abstract art, geometric expressionism, and the monochrome.

• The Global Archive: Shot across cities such as Toronto, Buffalo, New York, Moscow, and Caen, the portfolio functions as an archive of urban landscapes. The imagery subverts ordinary city walls into accidental gallery spaces by focusing on the textures, bricklines, and bold shapes of these cover-ups.

• Evolution of the Work: The initial book project expanded into an installation format titled Cover Up la suite. This multimedia evolution pairs a massive slideshow of overpainted surfaces with historical newspaper articles tracking the institutional history of graffiti eradication.