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MATTA

Past
Mar 17 – Jun 4, 2023
Palm Beach
 

Exhibition Details:

MATTA
Mar 17 – Jun 4, 2023

Gallery:

The Royal Poinciana Plaza
340 Royal Poinciana Way
Suite M333
Palm Beach

Connect:

(opens in a new window) @pacegallery

Above: Installation view, MATTA, Mar 17 – Jun 4, 2023, Pace Gallery, Palm Beach © 2023 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Pace is pleased to present an exhibition of work by surrealist painter Roberto Matta at its Palm Beach gallery. On view from March 17 to June 4, this focused show will feature five paintings created by the artist between the 1970s and 1990s.

Born in Santiago, Chile in 1911, Matta would become an influential member of the surrealist movement, associating with figures like André Breton in the 1940s. Matta’s early interest in giving visual form to what he termed “psychological morphologies” was transformed by World War II, the Cold War, and Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 coup in Chile. Those events and their aftermaths catalyzed Matta to take a more politically minded approach to painting. The artist once said, “I believe that before anything else we need an image of society, an image of economics, to help us to see where we are. Just as we need to refer to maps to locate ourselves in space, we have to find a way of depicting our position in history.”

Pace’s presentation of Matta’s mid- and late-career work in Palm Beach will shed light on his mature style. Through his unique, imaginative vision, the artist parsed big questions centering on the origins of human consciousness, the arc of human history, and the makeup of vast, unknowable universes beyond the Earth. Often cited as a critical influence on the development of the New York School, Matta combined figuration and abstraction to explore spiritual and fantastical subjects related to human interiority and cosmic landscapes. The paintings included in the gallery’s upcoming exhibition reflect his ability to imbue two-dimensional scenes with a sense of dynamic movement and illimitable depth.

 

Featured Works

Roberto Matta, Ré-veille ton contraire, 1970, oil on canvas, 43-1/8" × 39-1/8" (109.5 cm × 99.4 cm)
Roberto Matta, L’éternité hors du moi, 1996, oil on canvas, 40-5/8" × 34-3/4" (103.2 cm × 88.3 cm)
Roberto Matta, Les Semences et les Oeufs, 1995, oil on canvas, 69-5/8" × 92-7/8" (176.8 cm × 235.8 cm)
Roberto Matta, Au fond de la fleur, 1993 - 94, oil on canvas, 52-3/4" × 66-7/8" (134 cm × 169.9 cm)
 

Installation Views

 
Matta.jpg

About the Artist

Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren, “Matta,” is considered one of the great Surrealists and is widely acclaimed for his critical—and catalytic—influence on the development of Abstract Expressionism and on his contemporaries, including Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell. Fascinated by the fluctuating energy of the universe and rejecting the notion of a single vantage point, he created paintings and drawings with complex, dynamic space eventually incorporating social commentary into his work through figurative imagery.

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