Vision speaks for itself.
I help it be heard.
Vision speaks for itself. I help it be heard.
Vision speaks for itself.
I help it be heard.
Vision speaks for itself.
I help it be heard.
I work with artists, publishers, galleries, and tech and cultural innovators to craft messages that reflect who they are and resonate with the people they want to reach.
I work with artists, publishers, galleries, and tech and cultural innovators to craft messages that reflect who they are and resonate with the people they want to reach.
I work with artists, publishers, galleries, and tech and cultural innovators to craft messages that reflect who they are and resonate with the people they want to reach.
I specialize in translating complex visions into messaging that’s clear, resonant, and true to you.
I specialize in translating complex visions into messaging that’s clear, resonant, and true to you.
I specialize in translating complex visions into messaging that’s clear, resonant, and true to you.
Many creatives and innovators struggle to connect with wider audiences, caught between jargon that alienates and simplification that distorts. By paying careful attention to your story and your work, we can discover authentic language that speaks deeply. It can even offer fresh insight into what you do.
Many creatives and innovators struggle to connect with wider audiences. They often find themselves caught between jargon that alienates and simplification that distorts their vision. I believe that by paying careful attention to your story and your work, we can discover authentic language that speaks more deeply to both you and your audience. At its best, the process can even offer fresh insight into your work itself.
Many creatives and innovators struggle to connect with wider audiences. They often find themselves caught between jargon that alienates and simplification that distorts their vision. I believe that by paying careful attention to your story and your work, we can discover authentic language that speaks more deeply to both you and your audience. At its best, the process can even offer fresh insight into your work itself.
Ways we can work together
Messaging & Brand Strategy
Signature messaging for a stand out identity
Be heard with clarity, consistency, and impact. I help you define your mission, positioning, and tone of voice so every message reaches the audience that matters.
What we create: brand messaging guides, taglines, campaign narratives, positioning statements, mission statements, coordinated messaging across digital channels.
Why it matters: your brand communicates with authority across every channel, leaving no doubt about who you are and what you stand for.
Be heard with clarity, consistency, and impact. I help you define your mission, positioning, and tone of voice so every message reaches the audience that matters.
What we create: brand messaging guides, taglines, campaign narratives, positioning statements, mission statements, coordinated messaging across digital channels.
Targeted Storytelling
Stories for specific goals
Transform complex ideas into persuasive narratives. I help shape your projects, initiatives, or concepts into compelling stories that meet your goals.
What we create: pitch decks, keynote scripts, investor presentations, panel scripts, book proposals, grant proposals.
Why it matters: your work influences and inspires through stories that resonate, leaving a lasting impression on your audience.
Transform complex ideas into persuasive narratives. I help shape your projects, initiatives, or concepts into compelling stories that meet your goals.
What we create: pitch decks, keynote scripts, investor presentations, panel scripts, book proposals, grant proposals.
Public Speaking & Presentation Coaching
Authentic presence on any platform
Project yourself with confidence and authority. I work with you to prepare talks, panels, interviews, or presentations so your ideas have the impact you intend.
What we create: speech or panel prep, presentation coaching, online self-presentation, personal messaging guidance, argument and narrative structuring.
Why it matters: you connect authentically, your ideas land with impact, and your presence reflects your expertise.
Project yourself with confidence and authority. I work with you to prepare talks, panels, interviews, or presentations so your ideas have the impact you intend.
What we create: speech or panel prep, presentation coaching, online self-presentation, personal messaging guidance, argument and narrative structuring.
Writing & Narrative
Words that reflect who you are
Your work deserves language that elevates it. I translate complex ideas into precise, engaging text that projects your identity and connects with your audience.
What we create: artist statements, exhibition texts, web content, essays, op-eds, forewords, profiles, high-level communications.
Why it matters: your ideas connect with your audience in a language they understand, while remaining true to your brand.
Your work deserves language that elevates it. I translate complex ideas into precise, engaging text that projects your identity and connects with your audience.
What we create: artist statements, exhibition texts, web content, essays, op-eds, forewords, profiles, high-level communications.
360° Brand & Visual Identity
Messaging and visuals integrated for web and beyond
A complete brand identity that shines across every channel. I collaborate with a collective of designers, filmmakers, and photographers to create messaging, visuals, and media that are fully aligned with who you are.
What we create: website design with messaging, full visual identity, logos, cinematic video production, photography for campaigns or profiles.
Why it matters: your brand is presented with impact across every platform, leaving a lasting impression on your audience.
A complete brand identity that shines across every channel. I collaborate with a collective of designers, filmmakers, and photographers to create messaging, visuals, and media that are fully aligned with who you are.
What we create: website design with messaging, full visual identity, logos, cinematic video production, photography for campaigns or profiles.
My Story
For a long time, I felt caught between high culture and real-world impact. While completing my PhD in literature at Cornell University, I engaged with culture at its highest level. But it was isolating. The language failed to speak to the emotions or concerns of a wider audience, and sometimes even to the uniqueness of the works themselves.
So I left and spent six years in marketing and sales in the wine industry, while continuing my work as an arts journalist. I discovered immediacy and impact, and honed my ability to speak to audiences in their own language, from rural Pennsylvanians to sommeliers at Michelin-starred restaurants in New York City to hip restaurateurs in Berlin. But it was all surface-level.
I believe there’s another way, beyond complexity and simplification. It begins by listening deeply to creators and their works, and translating that depth for the people they want to reach.
I do this work because I’ve felt firsthand the limitations of both high and low culture. Yet the time I’ve spent in both worlds also allows me to bridge them: to understand the most complex of works and speak about them in the language of the broadest audience, in ways conventional marketing can’t.
Call it branding, messaging or marketing, for me it’s ultimately about connection: understanding, and helping others be understood.
Ways we can work together
Messaging & Brand Strategy
Signature messaging for a stand out identity
Be heard with clarity, consistency, and impact. I help you define your mission, positioning, and tone of voice so every message reaches the audience that matters.
What we create: brand messaging guides, taglines, campaign narratives, positioning statements, mission statements, coordinated messaging across digital channels.
Why it matters: your brand communicates with authority across every channel, leaving no doubt about who you are and what you stand for.
Targeted Storytelling
Stories for specific goals
Transform complex ideas into persuasive narratives. I help shape your projects, initiatives, or concepts into compelling stories that meet your goals.
What we create: pitch decks, keynote scripts, investor presentations, panel scripts, book proposals, grant proposals.
Why it matters: your work influences and inspires through stories that resonate, leaving a lasting impression on your audience.
Public Speaking & Presentation Coaching
Authentic presence on any platform
Project yourself with confidence and authority. I work with you to prepare talks, panels, interviews, or presentations so your ideas have the impact you intend.
What we create: speech or panel prep, presentation coaching, online self-presentation, personal messaging guidance, argument and narrative structuring.
Why it matters: you connect authentically, your ideas land with impact, and your presence reflects your expertise.
Writing & Narrative
Words that reflect who you are
Your work deserves language that elevates it. I translate complex ideas into precise, engaging text that projects your identity and connects with your audience.
What we create: artist statements, exhibition texts, web content, essays, op-eds, forewords, profiles, high-level communications.
Why it matters: your ideas connect with your audience in a language they understand, while remaining true to your brand.
360° Brand & Visual Identity
Messaging and visuals integrated for web and beyond
A complete brand identity that shines across every channel. I collaborate with a collective of designers, filmmakers, and photographers to create messaging, visuals, and media that are fully aligned with who you are.
What we create: website design with messaging, full visual identity, logos, cinematic video production, photography for campaigns or profiles.
Why it matters: your brand is presented with impact across every platform, leaving a lasting impression on your audience.
Past Work
My past work includes messaging and brand strategy for art galleries and tech startups, promotional writing for major musicians and artists, including Jon Rafman and Ad Minoliti, as well as artist biographies and curatorial texts.
For me, writing lucidly about complex work means seeking to understand it. I draw on my background in academic research and criticism. But above all, I listen: creating an open space for creators to talk about their projects in their own language.
Interviewing has also been central to my live work, such as moderating a talk with the artist Yonamine at Michael Janssen Gallery in Berlin. I take real pleasure in front of an audience or a camera, with experience dating back to previous careers in academia and the wine industry, whether teaching cultural theory to Ivy League college students or delivering four-hour presentations on champagne to a large crowd in German.
I also host Berlin from the Gallery to the Street, an Instagram channel devoted to the city’s best art, on and off the pavement. Through photography, video reviews, and artist interviews, the channel cuts through the hype to offer my take on Berlin’s most compelling art, whether monumental works in Martin Gropius Bau or tags scrawled on a Berliner Altbau. It puts into practice my approach to cultural content: sophistication and impact without jargon or pretense. Check it out here.
My Story
For a long time, I felt caught between high culture and real-world impact. While completing my PhD in literature at Cornell University, I engaged with culture at its highest level. But it was isolating. The language failed to speak to the emotions or concerns of a wider audience, and sometimes even to the uniqueness of the works themselves.
So I left and spent six years in marketing and sales in the wine industry, while continuing my work as an arts journalist. I discovered immediacy and impact, and honed my ability to speak to audiences in their own language, from rural Pennsylvanians to sommeliers at Michelin-starred restaurants in New York City to hip restaurateurs in Berlin. But it was all surface-level.
I believe there’s another way, beyond complexity and simplification. It begins by listening deeply to creators and their works, and translating that depth for the people they want to reach.
I do this work because I’ve felt firsthand the limitations of both high and low culture. Yet the time I’ve spent in both worlds also allows me to bridge them: to understand the most complex of works and speak about them in the language of the broadest audience, in ways conventional marketing can’t.
Call it branding, messaging or marketing, for me it’s ultimately about connection: understanding, and helping others be understood.
Past Work
My past work includes messaging and brand strategy for art galleries and tech startups, promotional writing for major musicians and artists, including Jon Rafman and Ad Minoliti, as well as artist biographies and curatorial texts.
For me, writing lucidly about complex work means seeking to understand it. I draw on my background in academic research and criticism. But above all, I listen: creating an open space for creators to talk about their projects in their own language.
Interviewing has also been central to my live work, such as moderating a talk with the artist Yonamine at Michael Janssen Gallery in Berlin. I take real pleasure in front of an audience or a camera, with experience dating back to previous careers in academia and the wine industry, whether teaching cultural theory to Ivy League college students or delivering four-hour presentations on champagne to a large crowd in German.
I also host Berlin from the Gallery to the Street, an Instagram channel devoted to the city’s best art, on and off the pavement. Through photography, video reviews, and artist interviews, the channel cuts through the hype to offer my take on Berlin’s most compelling art, whether monumental works in Martin Gropius Bau or tags scrawled on a Berliner Altbau. It puts into practice my approach to cultural content: sophistication and impact without jargon or pretense. Check it out here.
Client Feedback
Client Feedback
I enjoyed working with Matteo. In our interview he was a generous listener and asked insightful questions.
He was also a perceptive viewer of my work. Matteo was able to write about my project with great clarity and effectively convey its stakes to a wide audience.
ad minoliti
artist
Matteo has a unique ability to frame complex ideas, and was able to capture not only the technical aspects but also the philosophical questions in my work.
He approached my topics with dedicated curiosity and created a space for open dialogue, fostering an engaged and enriching conversation.
sophie ERLUND
Chair of Art in Architecture, TUM
Matteo Calla’s text for the exhibition captured its essence with rare sensitivity and depth.
His thoughtful and intuitive questions led to a nuanced exploration that made me feel deeply understood as an artist. His writing resonates beyond description…like a quiet echo of the work itself
JOHN LONDONO
PHOTOGRAPHER
I enjoyed working with Matteo. In our interview he was a generous listener and asked insightful questions.
He was also a perceptive viewer of my work. Matteo was able to write about my project with great clarity and effectively convey its stakes to a wide audience.
ad minoliti
artist
Matteo has a unique ability to frame complex ideas, and was able to capture not only the technical aspects but also the philosophical questions in my work.
He approached my topics with dedicated curiosity and created a space for open dialogue, fostering an engaged and enriching conversation.
sophie ERLUND
Chair of Art in Architecture, TUM
Matteo Calla’s text for the exhibition captured its essence with rare sensitivity and depth.
His thoughtful and intuitive questions led to a nuanced exploration that made me feel deeply understood as an artist. His writing resonates beyond description…like a quiet echo of the work itself
JOHN LONDONO
PHOTOGRAPHER
I enjoyed working with Matteo. In our interview he was a generous listener and asked insightful questions.
He was also a perceptive viewer of my work. Matteo was able to write about my project with great clarity and effectively convey its stakes to a wide audience.
ad minoliti
artist
Matteo has a unique ability to frame complex ideas, and was able to capture not only the technical aspects but also the philosophical questions in my work.
He approached my topics with dedicated curiosity and created a space for open dialogue, fostering an engaged and enriching conversation.
sophie ERLUND
Chair of Art in Architecture, TUM
Matteo Calla’s text for the exhibition captured its essence with rare sensitivity and depth.
His thoughtful and intuitive questions led to a nuanced exploration that made me feel deeply understood as an artist. His writing resonates beyond description…like a quiet echo of the work itself
JOHN LONDONO
PHOTOGRAPHER
I enjoyed working with Matteo. In our interview he was a generous listener and asked insightful questions.
He was also a perceptive viewer of my work. Matteo was able to write about my project with great clarity and effectively convey its stakes to a wide audience.
ad minoliti
artist
Matteo has a unique ability to frame complex ideas, and was able to capture not only the technical aspects but also the philosophical questions in my work.
He approached my topics with dedicated curiosity and created a space for open dialogue, fostering an engaged and enriching conversation.
sophie ERLUND
Chair of Art in Architecture, TUM
Matteo Calla’s text for the exhibition captured its essence with rare sensitivity and depth.
His thoughtful and intuitive questions led to a nuanced exploration that made me feel deeply understood as an artist. His writing resonates beyond description…like a quiet echo of the work itself
JOHN LONDONO
PHOTOGRAPHER