Matta-Duchamp

Matta, rather than talk of landscapes, referred to
his paintings as ‘inscapes’. This play of language links
Matta perhaps to the inward mysticism of Kandinsky,
which extends further back to the mystical worlds conjured
up Madame Blavatsky. On a compositional level,
a painting such as Kandinsky’s Composition V (1911)
is architecturally constructed. Matta was a painter,
he was a writer and he was, before anything else, an
architect and it was such that he always aggressively
escribed himself. Today, the scientists of Silicon Valley
often think of themselves as ‘architects’: in as much as
architecture is spatial and multi-sensory, Matta was indeed
a space explorer and architect avant la’lettre. If
properly presented, Matta could yet have a huge influence
on a contemporary art in that world of what was
once called new media and the web – i.e. the all-pervasive
network – which he constantly anticipates in all his
multi-dimensional paintings. His huge mural paintings
that can often extend up to 20 meters long, appear, like
Monet’s series ‘Water Lilies’, at one level as immersive
environments, enveloping fields. We peer into Monet’s
ponds and see an infinite micro-universe; we peer into
Matta’s paintings and it’s like looking into the endless
space of the cosmos through his mind’s eye. Today
knowledge of Matta’s work can help us make sense for
instance of the great surfing paintings of Julian Schnabel.
His monumental works speak to the jagged forms
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