Published on the occasion of an exhibition of the same name held at the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia, April 10-June 30, 2019. Essays by Mikhail Piotrovsky, Oksana Salamatina, Dimitri Ozerkov, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Fariba Bogzaran, and Linda Dalrymple Henderson ; interview of Hans Ulrich Obrist by Oksana Salamatina ; interview of Roberto Matta and Ramuntcho Matta by Hans Ulrich Obrist ; conversation between Roberto Matta and Fariba Bogzaran. Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-214)
Summary:
A protagonist in the tale of surrealism's influence on American art at midcentury, the Chilean painter Roberto Matta initially trained as an architect, and moved to Paris in 1933 to work for Le Corbusier. It was in Paris that Matta met the surrealists. Inspired by non-Euclidian geometry (like Duchamp, de Chirico and others), Matta tried to give shape to structures built in his mind, creating space beyond conventional perspective. Additionally, through the writings of Russian philosopher Peter D. Ouspensky, Matta became fascinated with the idea of the fourth dimension, and, upon his move to New York, transmitted these ideas to abstract expressionist painters such as Gorky, Motherwell and Pollock. The first overview of the artist in many years, 'Matta & the Fourth Dimension' features more than 60 of Matta's paintings, highlighting the artist's unique understanding of space and his pursuit of the fourth dimension on canvas. With a text by Linda Dalrymple Henderson (author of 'The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art') and an interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist, this volume offers a much-needed comprehensive survey of the artist's work.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.