Roberto Matta

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Invasion of the Night, oil on canvas, 1940, SFMOMA.

Roberto Sebastian Antonio Matta Echaurren (1911-2002), usually known as Matta, was one of Chile's best-known painters. Born in Santiago on 11 November 1911, he initially studied architecture at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile in Santiago, but became disillusioned with this occupation and left for Paris in 1933. His travels led him to meet artists such as René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, André Breton, and Le Corbusier.

It was Breton who provided the major spur to the Chilean's direction in art, encouraging his work and introducing him to the leading members of the Paris Surrealist movement. Matta produced illustrations and articles in the Surrealist journal Minotaure. During this period he was introduced to the work of many prominent contemporary European artists, such as Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp.

The first true flowering of Matta's own art came in 1938, when he moved from drawing to the oil painting for which he is best known. This period coincided with his emigration to the United States, where he lived until 1948. His early paintings, such as Invasion of the Night, give an indication of the work he would continue, with diffuse light patterns and bold lines on a featureless background. This is also the period of the "inscape" series, and the closely related "psychological morphologies". Prof. Claude Cernuschi [see Boston College Matta exhibition external link below] writes of how "Matta's key ambition to represent and evoke the human psyche in visual form was filtered through the writings of Freud and the psychoanalytic view of the mind as a three-dimensional space: the 'inscape'." According to the essay on Matta in Crosscurrents of Modernism (see references below), the inscapes' evocative forms "are visual analogies for the artist's psyche" (p. 241). During the 1940s and 1950s, the disturbing state of world politics found reflection in Matta's work, with the canvases becoming busy with images of electrical machinery and distressed figures. The addition of clay to Matta's paintings in the early 1960s lent an added dimension to the distortions.

In his art Matta creates new dimensions in a blend of organic and cosmic lifeforms. He was one of the first artists to take this abstract leap.

Elle Loge La Folie, oil on canvas, 1970.

Matta's connections with Breton's Surrealist movement were severed when a private disagreement led to his expulsion from the group, but by this time his own name was becoming widely known. He divided his life between Europe and South America during the 1950s and 1960s, successfully combining the political and the semi-abstract in epic surreal canvases.

Media pirates have begun a circulation of his video "Système 88".

Matta died in Civitavecchia, Italy, on 23 November 2002.

Matta is the father of the artist Gordon Matta-Clark.

1 Selected list of works
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Selected list of works

Redness of Lead, 1943.

ca. 1932 - 33 Sick Flesh
1934 The Clown
1935 Untitled (Payasa)
1936 Panama and Wet Sheets
1937 La Forêt, Snail’s Trace, Composición Azul, Scénario No. 1: Succion Panique du Soleil and Morphology
1938 The Red Sun, Space Travel (Star Travel), To Both of You, Crucifiction (Croix Fiction), several works titled Psychological Morphology and Morphology of Desire
1939 more works titled Psychological Morphology and Water
1940 Dark Light
1941 Invasion of the Night, Ecouter Vivre, Théorie de l’Arbre, Composition Abstraite, The Initiation (Origine d’un Extrême) and Foeu
1942 The Hanged Man, The End of Everything, The Disasters of Mysticism and The Apples we Know
1943 L’Oeyx, El Día es un Atentado and Redness of Lead
1944 Cover art for the final issue of the magazine VVV, To Escape the Absolute, Et At It, Le Glaive et la Parole and Poing d’Hurlement

Psychological Morphology, ca. 1938.

1945 La Femme Affamée, Abstracto, The Heart Players and Rêve ou Morte
1946 Le Pélerin du Doute and A Grave Situation
1947 Accidentalité, Metamatician # 12 and Black Mirror
1948 Wound Interrogation and The Prophet
1949 La Revécue and Woman Looked At
1950 C’Ontra Vosotvos Asesinon de Palomas
1951 Ne Songe Plus à Fuir and Les Roses Sont Belles
1952 Pecador Justificado and Eclosion
1953 Morning on Earth, Hills a Poppin, The Murder of the Rosenbergs, L’Hosticier and L’Apetite de Primer
1954 Abrir los Brazos Como se Abren los Ojos, Bud Sucker, The Chess Player, L’Atout and Tados Juntos en la Tierra
1955 Le Long Pont, Spearcing of the Grain, L’Engin dans l’Éminence and Intervision
1956 Banale de Venise, Heart Malitte, Fleur de Midi and Le Pianiste
1957 Le Point d’Ombre, L’Impencible, The And of Think and Ciel Volante
1958 La Chasse Spirituelle (started in 1957), Être Cible Nous Monde, L’Etang de No, The Infancy of Concentration, Les Eviteurs and Le Courier

Le Dauphin de la Memoire, 1984.

1959 Un Soleil à Qui Sait Reunir, Les Faiseurs du Neant, The Clan and L’Impensable (Grand Personage)
1960 Couple IV (started in 1959), Être Atout (five part suite), Vers l’Universe, Ciudad Cósmica and Design of Intuition
1961 Vivir Enfrentando las Flechas
1962 Les Moyens du Creafeur, Claustrophobic Vaincue and Mal de Terre
1963 Eve Vielle
1964 Éros Semens (triptych, started in 1962) and La Luz del Proscrito (started in 1963)
1965 La Térre Uni
1966 Le où A Marée Haute and La Promenade de Vénus
1967 Signe of the Times and Morire per Amore
1968 Malitte (modular furniture set designed between 1966 and 1968) and La Caza de Adolescentes
1969 Lieberos, Nude Hiding in the Forest and Verginosamente
1970 Elle Logela Folie, Je-ographie, El Hombre de la Lampara and MAgriTTA Chair
1971 Otto Por Tre and Paralelles de la Viel
1972 Coigitum and The Upheaval of One’s Ocean
1973 La Vida Allende la Muerte, Senile d’Incertitude, Migration des Révoltes and Hom’mer (Chaosmos) (suite of ten etchings with aquatint)

A Grave Situation, 1946.

1974 Explosant Fixe, Je M’Espionne, Deep Mars, L’Aube Permanente and Cadran d’Incendies
1975 Mas Ceilin and Illumine le Temps
1976 Wake (started in 1974), Une d’Une and Les Voix des Temples
1977 Rooming Life, L’Ombre de l’Invisible and Ouvre l’Instant
1978 Carré-four and Dedalopolous
1979 Polimorfologia
1980 Il Proprio Corno Mio, Laocoontare (La Guerra Delle Idee) and Pyrocentre
1981 Las Scillabas de Scylla, El Espejo de Cronos and El Verbo América
1982 Geomagnética de Danza (started in 1981), Ils Sexplose, Passo Interno di Mercurio, Labirintad and The Sign
1983 Morphologie de la Gaîté, Logos Men and Artificial Lucidity
1984 Ecran de la Mémoire and Le Dauphin de la Memoire
1985 Simposio o Composio
1986 Mi-mosa, 24 Mai 1986, Une Pierre Qui Regagnera le Ciel and Oeramen, la Conscience est un Arbre Vetroresina

La Source du Calme, 2002. This was Matta's final work.

1987 D’Âme et d’Eve
1988 Être Cri
1989 Violetation and L’Envenement Non Identifié
1990 A l’Intérieur de la Rose, Omnipuissance du Rouge, Navigateur and Haiku
1991 Parmi les Désirs and Ma Dame
1992 Champ du Vide, Cosmo-now, Le Désnomeur Rénomme and Farfallacqua
1993 Leaving Your Grass, Vertige du Vertige, Torinox and Colomberos
1994 Vent d’Atomes
1995 Les Arpèges, L’Âme du Fond and Melodia-Melodio
1996 The Road to Heaven, Storming Water River and Redness of Blue
1997 Flowerita and Oak Flower
1998 Youniverso
1999 Blanche ou Fleur
2000 N’ou’s Autres
2002 Post History Chicken Flowers, La Dulce Acqua Vita and La Source du Calme

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Passeron, René (1984). The Concise Encyclopedia of Surrealism. Trans. J. Griffiths. Ware, UK: Omega Books. ISBN 0-907853-28-5.
Fletcher, Valerie J; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Crosscurrents of modernism : four Latin American pioneers : Diego Rivera, Joaquín Torres-García, Wifredo Lam, Matta = Intercambios del modernismo : cuatro precursores latinoamericanos : Diego Rivera, Joaquín Torres-García, Wilfredo Lam, Matta (Washington, D.C. : Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in association with the Smithsonian Institution Press, ©1992), ISBN 1-56098-205-5; ISBN 1-56098-206-3