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Lot Essay
This work is sold with a certificate of authenticity signed by Germana Matta Ferrari and dated 8.8.1991 and is registered in the Matta archives under No. 67/1.
Matta's first contribution to surrealist painting, and the most important, was the discovery of regions of space until then unknown in the field of art.
-Marcel Duchamp[1]
By mid-century, Matta had been cast from the surrealist group for abandoning abstraction and pursuing an increasingly narrative and socio-political context in his work. But far from lamenting this break Matta seemed to relish the opportunity to explore new areas of creativity unencumbered by the precepts and limitations of Surrealism. Moreover by the 1950s, the artist's diaphanous and mysterious landscapes suggesting inner worlds or what he described as "Psychological Morphologies" and his dynamic and pulsating physical scapes in constant transformation and turmoil had themselves morphed into biomorphic abstractions inhabited by tubular humanoids partially inspired by mythical totemic figures culled from such myriad sources as pre-Columbian, Native American, and Oceanic arts. It seemed that against the backdrop of world events unfolding Matta could no longer afford to merely focus his practice on expressing the subconscious world or distant cosmic realities and phenomena. But rather his practice assumed a sense of urgency that posits the dehumanizing effects of technology, war, social injustice, and political corruption. Thus Matta's post war production evinces cosmic and social landscapes indicative of recent historical events, while providing a metaphorical glimpse into the timeless struggles of humanity.
By the 1960s, Matta's heightened concerns about social inequalities and the perennial struggles of man led the artist to embark on a number of significant trips, most notably he traveled to Cuba, Chile, and Nicaragua where he actively engaged with artists and supported political movements that opposed exploitation. Likewise in his own work he continued to engage more humanistic concerns and current events such as racial strife and the Vietnam War, whilst never abandoning the core tenets of his practice--the search to visually convey a cosmic reality that transcended traditional notions of time and space. During this period Matta's subject matter also gravitated to mythological themes, futuristic warfare, and phantasmic creatures in undersea or other chimerical worlds. Painted in 1967, Péage de Venus depicts a liminal space populated by spectral apparitions--biomorphic and humanoid creatures--engaged in a bacchanalian ritual of procreation and fertility whilst floating amid a vaporous underworld far below the sea or high above the heavens. The overall mood is one of reverie and unabashed abandonment that recall the Renaissance masterpiece by Hieronymus Bosch The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1510). In Matta's painting androids with elongated and circular appendages suggest otherworldly bi-sexual beings with a heighted sense of sexual potency, while bulbous shaped pods harness seeds yet to be fertilized or perhaps eggs in a state of gestation. The artist employs his familiar technique of sponging and wiping off thinned pigment to produce translucent layers of color. Here blue, ivory, and green-yellow washes fill the canvas to create a limitless space in which the boundaries between the terrestrial and aquatic and living creatures and their environment are effectively dissolved. The title Péage de Venus further underscores the painting's erotic and sensual overtones conjuring visions of a transitory passage granting access to the mythological world of the Roman goddess Venus--a universal symbol of sexuality and fertility.
Against the turbulent climate of the 1960s one can certainly interpret Péage de Venus as a reprieve from the many social ills befalling humanity. Indeed Matta's sensually charged cosmic vision serves as a utopian counterpoint suggestive of the decade's youth culture and ethos of experimentation and sexual openness. But beyond literal interpretations, here as elsewhere Matta offers us a visual tour de force that pierces through our intelligible world and in its stead gives form to that which exists at the limits of our perception. Indeed, throughout Matta's phenomenal career spanning nearly eight decades the artist never wavered in his pursuit of making visible what remains unknowable. Whether it is the inner recesses of the mind or infinitesimal depths of cosmic spaces heretofore unseen or unimagined, Matta trail blazed a distinct course that firmly situates him among the leading figures of twentieth-century vanguard art practices.
1 As quoted in Martica Sawin, "Matta: The Early Years, 1937 to 1959" in exhibition catalogue Roberto Matta: Paintings and Drawings 1937-1959 (Beverly Hills and Mexico City: Latin American Masters and Galería López Quiroga, 1997), unpaginated.
Matta's first contribution to surrealist painting, and the most important, was the discovery of regions of space until then unknown in the field of art.
-Marcel Duchamp[1]
By mid-century, Matta had been cast from the surrealist group for abandoning abstraction and pursuing an increasingly narrative and socio-political context in his work. But far from lamenting this break Matta seemed to relish the opportunity to explore new areas of creativity unencumbered by the precepts and limitations of Surrealism. Moreover by the 1950s, the artist's diaphanous and mysterious landscapes suggesting inner worlds or what he described as "Psychological Morphologies" and his dynamic and pulsating physical scapes in constant transformation and turmoil had themselves morphed into biomorphic abstractions inhabited by tubular humanoids partially inspired by mythical totemic figures culled from such myriad sources as pre-Columbian, Native American, and Oceanic arts. It seemed that against the backdrop of world events unfolding Matta could no longer afford to merely focus his practice on expressing the subconscious world or distant cosmic realities and phenomena. But rather his practice assumed a sense of urgency that posits the dehumanizing effects of technology, war, social injustice, and political corruption. Thus Matta's post war production evinces cosmic and social landscapes indicative of recent historical events, while providing a metaphorical glimpse into the timeless struggles of humanity.
By the 1960s, Matta's heightened concerns about social inequalities and the perennial struggles of man led the artist to embark on a number of significant trips, most notably he traveled to Cuba, Chile, and Nicaragua where he actively engaged with artists and supported political movements that opposed exploitation. Likewise in his own work he continued to engage more humanistic concerns and current events such as racial strife and the Vietnam War, whilst never abandoning the core tenets of his practice--the search to visually convey a cosmic reality that transcended traditional notions of time and space. During this period Matta's subject matter also gravitated to mythological themes, futuristic warfare, and phantasmic creatures in undersea or other chimerical worlds. Painted in 1967, Péage de Venus depicts a liminal space populated by spectral apparitions--biomorphic and humanoid creatures--engaged in a bacchanalian ritual of procreation and fertility whilst floating amid a vaporous underworld far below the sea or high above the heavens. The overall mood is one of reverie and unabashed abandonment that recall the Renaissance masterpiece by Hieronymus Bosch The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1510). In Matta's painting androids with elongated and circular appendages suggest otherworldly bi-sexual beings with a heighted sense of sexual potency, while bulbous shaped pods harness seeds yet to be fertilized or perhaps eggs in a state of gestation. The artist employs his familiar technique of sponging and wiping off thinned pigment to produce translucent layers of color. Here blue, ivory, and green-yellow washes fill the canvas to create a limitless space in which the boundaries between the terrestrial and aquatic and living creatures and their environment are effectively dissolved. The title Péage de Venus further underscores the painting's erotic and sensual overtones conjuring visions of a transitory passage granting access to the mythological world of the Roman goddess Venus--a universal symbol of sexuality and fertility.
Against the turbulent climate of the 1960s one can certainly interpret Péage de Venus as a reprieve from the many social ills befalling humanity. Indeed Matta's sensually charged cosmic vision serves as a utopian counterpoint suggestive of the decade's youth culture and ethos of experimentation and sexual openness. But beyond literal interpretations, here as elsewhere Matta offers us a visual tour de force that pierces through our intelligible world and in its stead gives form to that which exists at the limits of our perception. Indeed, throughout Matta's phenomenal career spanning nearly eight decades the artist never wavered in his pursuit of making visible what remains unknowable. Whether it is the inner recesses of the mind or infinitesimal depths of cosmic spaces heretofore unseen or unimagined, Matta trail blazed a distinct course that firmly situates him among the leading figures of twentieth-century vanguard art practices.
1 As quoted in Martica Sawin, "Matta: The Early Years, 1937 to 1959" in exhibition catalogue Roberto Matta: Paintings and Drawings 1937-1959 (Beverly Hills and Mexico City: Latin American Masters and Galería López Quiroga, 1997), unpaginated.