Remembering Matt Freedman

A prolific sculptor, cartoonist, performer, writer and curator, Matt was an artist of incredible range and a devoted teacher. In 2019, he earned the Perkins Distinguished Graduate Teaching Award (Non-Standing Faculty), the School’s highest honor. At the time, one of the students who wrote in support of his nomination said, “Matt pushes students to think in non-conventional ways and has absolutely made me a better students and artist.” Ken Lum, Marilyn Jordan Taylor Presidential Professor and chair of fine arts, told me recently, “He was the kindest soul, and his observations about art were always incisive and illuminating.”

Matt first came to Penn as a visiting critic in the 1990s and was appointed lecturer in 2009, eventually teaching in both the undergraduate and graduate fine arts programs. Over the course of his career, he also taught at the University of Iowa, Parsons, Pratt, SVA, RISD, VCU, and Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam. He had a long history showing work and curating projects throughout New York City as well as Philadelphia. He exhibited over 20 years at the Lesley Heller Gallery, and in 2014, he published a graphic memoir, Relatively Indolent but Relentless, in which he recorded his experience undergoing 35 days of aggressive treatment for a rare cancer known as adenoid cystic carcinoma. The brilliant imagination—to say nothing of the determination—on display in the book earned him the admiration of many who didn’t know his work before, and proved him to be an unflinching witness to the human experience. In this, he was the very definition of an artist.

Written for a virtual Weitzman memorial event held on October 28, 2020.

We’ve gathered this evening to celebrate, mourn, and share stories about Matt.

He was larger than life, someone who taught us about Living, and Teaching, and Making Art, but also about Fighting, and Failing, and Fun.

I’ve seen your social media posts these last few days, and the phrases RADICAL GENEROSITY, A HEART GENIUS, and HILARIOUS, EVEN WHEN MOROSE stood out. All That.

It’s not just that we all loved him, but he actually changed so many of our lives. More joy, more humor, more risk, more commitment, more insight. There was, quite literally, no one and nothing he wasn’t profoundly interested in and curious about, and we felt that. One of his performances was called Magic and Catastrophe. Yes.

As a colleague, he was a true inspiration – he believed so profoundly in our students, in the realness and poignancy of every struggle and breakthrough. His presence in this department reminded us all why we are here. My only regret is that future classes of MFA’s will not have the experience of that eccentric, wonderful mind – the one the size of a small planet. If there’s any doubt about why you go to Grad School at all, this is the answer – to encounter people like Matt, so you can hear his brilliant voice in your head when you doubt yourself in the future.

I’d like to share a paragraph from his famous Drawing Syllabus – the one that everyone has kept, and reread, and tucked away somewhere safe. It’s basically Matt’s manifesto….

“I am going to make one simple assumption to guide me in this class: we are gummed up, at least more gummed up than we’d like to be. Every artist entertains some level of frustration with their practice, and every artist searchs for the tools to liberate themselves from that nagging sense that things could be better in the studio. “Gummed up” is a deliberately imprecise and goofy term. There’s no point dressing up the fact that artists struggle, often against themselves, to improve their work. The problem may be purely practical: you may want, (and need) to widen your scope of material and skill options. It may be scholastic: you may want, and need, to know more about the history that informs your work: who did and thought similar and more clever things before you. It may be psychological, or if you prefer, spiritual; you may worry too much about what others think of your work and about your own right to make that work in the first place.”

I feel ‘gummed” up by the very idea of continuing without him.

Matt made everyone believe they could be an artist, and that life was worth living no matter what, and that we should do it with gusto.  He certainly did, drawing and laughing through everything.  As one student said, “he should be designated a National Treasure.” And so, with the power invested in me by no one whatsoever, I hereby do so.

I was Matt's student at Penn. Before I officially began at the program, when Matt and I met the first or second time, I asked him in a awkward joking sort of way if the program would take us student caterpillars and wrap us in academia cocoons for us to emerge butterflies. He responded, “The hope is that you all come in as caterpillars, yes, but that you leave as caterpillars, too. Maybe just different caterpillars than when you started.” He chuckled and continued, “Aren’t we all just caterpillars?” 

I will always cherish our studio visits or hanging out at first friday openings. Your relaxed demeanor and inquisitive questioning is a trait i hope to bring to my own classes. A mentor, gentle human and a fierce friend. I miss getting lost in our studio chats, talking about life, sharing stories. Knowing you has made me a better person and your drawing class was one of my favorite experiences not only at Penn but in the entirety of my academic career. You will be forever missed ... but will continue to live on with every life you have touched.