Uploading pictures of Rene Matić in Perspex is not enough to impress | Photo Gallery

At 29, Rene Matić and the youngest person to win the £30,000 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation prize. They were chosen for their presentation alone As Challengers of Truth at CCA Berlin – there is here a limited renovation that represents part of the show at the London Gallery. Matić was also the youngest artist ever he was nominated for the Turner prize last year.

There are things I like about Matić. I love how they challenge what’s important in life and art, and what’s important in Britain. Their 2022 project, Upon This Rock (shown in Berlin although not currently shown in London) – The installation of photographs and a film examining the artist’s father, Paul, and his involvement with the movement of the skin – seemed to break new ground, both emotionally and physically. Matić’s willingness to understand masculinity and fatherhood as forces that shape the world, and how he weaves new narratives into the history of British history, felt original and interesting.

However, many of Matić’s other works do not feel mature enough for the artist to pick up an award early in their career. Installation Feelings Wheel, a series of diaristic comics that and displayed in the Artists’ Gallery, it sounds like something you’d put on your wall or Tumblr at university. They’re pretty average photos, safe from Instagram scrutiny, and framing them in Perspex doesn’t make them any less interesting. I find that there is a frustrating dissonance, preaching to the converted, when the most effective art creates bridges between artists and viewers, allowing people outside the gang to understand and be moved by them.

Most of the time, Matić’s pictures are simply interesting with the different ways he shows them in meetings, places and art. Their work draws comparisons to Wolfgang Tillmans or Nan Goldin, who both painted their cultures and landscapes, but boldly and intelligently. With slideshows to music (in the case of Goldin’s Ballad of Sexual Dependency) and multivariate settings responding to the location (Tillmans), both artists stop focusing on a single image, creating new ways of looking at multiple images that Matić is familiar with but never progress.

There is nothing wrong with art that focuses on humanity – especially the identities that have been erased and ignored in this country. The fact that an ordinary, working-class person won this award is a good example of what the Deutsche Börse award stands for. But based on Matić’s record, I don’t think he would have won.

Autobiography may not be the only thing a job can offer. I’m not sure what’s more convincing or surprising about Matić’s pictures of flags and tattoos, or people kissing at Glastonbury. At times, the vulnerability and compassion come across as fun rather than honest, and there aren’t enough tension-filled questions in the work for viewers to resolve. Leaving the exhibition, I felt flat – although there are ideas, they need more time to percolate. What this success seems to tell us about photography now is that how you market yourself is more important than the work you produce.