Matta
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
The search for limits in multiple dimensions and the investigation of space and its possibilities occupied during considerable time the thoughts of Matta (Santiago de Chile, 1911- Civitavecchia, Italy, 2002), interested in these concepts and in their application in the field of the visual arts since the days of his training as an architect. This journey of exploration included the scene that the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum resorted to for the commemoration of the centenary of the artist’s birth, adapting, to the extent possible, the exhibition of L’Honni aveuglant (The dazzling outcast) which was featured in the Alexandre Iolas gallery in Paris in the summer of 1966. This was the date when Matta offered to the world “the open cube”, where the spectator had to position him/herself at the center of a parallelepiped − the magnitudes and proportions did not actually render it a cube − formed, in its initial version, by six canvases. This marked the consummation of a new representation of the dimensional, overcoming the restrictions against which he had fought for years, even though an execution which was faithful to his original conception was not possible due to the fact that the actual space was subject to certain limitations.
Nearly four and a half decades later, Madrid’s museum of paintings, which has these holdings in its permanent collection, has decided to show, in a manner as faithful as possible to the first proposal conceived by Matta, the five canvases which comprised L’Honni aveuglant, representing four sides of the cube. In this way, the spectator can enjoy this transgressing idea, confronting its relationship with the future, contained in Les Grandes expectatives; with nature (Où loge la folie); with different dangers (Le Où à marée haute); and with the partners in affront (L’Honni aveuglant), all of them analogies of the complete development of the individual who finds himself, at the time of viewing the work, surrounded by that which gives shape to it. Also shown alongside these works and as a complement in this particular tribute to the Chilean master, is Sin título, 1942-1943, also belonging to the museum’s permanent collection.
-
Donde mora la locura A. Del clicio: El procrito deslumbrante, 1966. Oil on board, 80.7 x 81 in. / Óleo sobre tabla, 205 x 203,5 cm. Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid/Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
