Matta-Duchamp

of Richard Serra’s steel sculptures and equally the land
art of Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty. But in so many
senses, yet to be fully explored they go conceptually
and image-wise even further.
When I took Dawn Ades, the most noted historians
of Surrealism and the art of twentieth-century South
America, to lunch to discuss who could help get together
a book on Matta she said she would like to do it herself,
which is indeed a measure of Matta’s importance.
Bridging South America, Europe and North America,
he was the last of the Surrealists; certainly the artist
who pressed the button on the New York School. In
Matta there is perhaps at last the potential to rediscover
one of the greatest and most visionary artists of the
twentieth century.
Norman Rosenthal
London, 2018
( 90 )