Matta, the Latin American surrealist who had the greatest impact on the movement worldwide

Tarquinia. A visit to the former convent that was converted into a residence by the surrealist artist Roberto Sebastián Matta (Santiago de Chile, 1911-Civitavecchia, Italy, 2002), allows us to discover the intimate universe of the only Latin American surrealist artist who had an international impact in his time, bringing a fresh and original touch to surrealism.

It was only here, in this silent space, that the many Chilean artists, intellectuals and political exiles could penetrate his intimate universe, which he defended with zeal.

Today, the house is closed to the public, except for researchers, who since 2018 have been able to access his archive (it was previously in Paris). It is impeccably guarded by Alisée, his youngest daughter, to the point that it feels as if the artist could come out at any moment to greet us.

Matta acquired this imposing and rustic former convent of the Congregation of the Passionist Fathers in 1968, seeking shelter from the worldly, but close to Rome. Since the 1970s, certificates of authenticity for his work have been issued here.

On one of the facades, Matta painted his portrait from behind, with his arms over his head, forming an oval that looks like an eye, which has become his emblem.

For the artist, the eye represents the act of observing in depth through the imagination; it is an eye in the center of the centerwhich requires the cultivation of intelligence, as an agriculture of the mindThe exterior of the house seems to suggest it conceptually, where the garden leads to contemplation, while the orchard, to action.

Among the works scattered in the garden, there is Hiroscemia. The title, characteristic of the neologisms used to name his work, combines the word Hiroshima con stupid, idiotin Italian, criticizing the barbarity of war.

There is also a version of omens, The most famous example of this is a huge, several-ton bronze oak tree in the collection of Paul Haim in Paris. This work is dedicated to the sacred tree of the Basques, the only one left after the bombing by Nazi troops in 1937. Matta identified deeply with his Basque origins. The half-open tree reveals the complexity of its internal structure, the same one that Matta instigated with his art to awaken consciousness.

Guerra

The war had a profound impact on Matta’s painting since the assassination of his friend Federico García Lorca, which inspired a series of drawings dedicated to the civil war in 1937, culminating in the painting The Earth is a Man (1942). Many of his paintings seem to immerse us in the climax of the war deflagration, where one can see and feel its destructive boil.

To reach this level of consciousness, Matta did some inner work by leaving the safety of his home in Chile as soon as he finished his architectural degree. Living in Europe, he said, he began by freeing himself from the outdated conservatism of the so-called Second Empire, from his home and At the age of 21 I started to see everything for the first time.

He devoted himself to drawing frantically in European museums, reflecting during long walks, without abandoning the principles of his training. My painting has one foot in architecture and the other in dreams.

This personal work and his encounters with the right people were crucial to his rise. Dalí shortened his very long name and gave him his surname, Matta. He also recommended him to André Breton, but above all to Marcel Duchamp, who would be a reference in his training.

Matta’s name is linked to surrealism, with which he exhibited from 1937 to 1959, although he was quite autonomous and explored different routes.

He was expelled from the group (and later readmitted) in 1948. for intellectual disqualification and moral ignominyblaming him for the suicide of his friend Arshile Gorky, due to an affair with his wife.

Matta was the youngest and last recruit of the group. He was interested in the exploration of the universe and science, as well as philosophy (particularly Nietzsche), indigenous American cultures and nature.

He was a key figure among American artists of abstract expressionism and action painting, who showed interest in the large format of their works, inspired by murals, as well as in the gestural nature of fast and fluid strokes. Matta managed to link them with the European avant-garde who, like him, emigrated to New York during the outbreak of the Second World War, from Duchamp to Yves Tanguy, who influenced him.

From the garden of this refuge, behind the gentle hills of olive groves, the line of the sea can be seen on the horizon. It was a bountiful land of the Etruscan era, including the stupefying painted tombs of Tarquinia. Matta lived here with his fifth and last wife, Germana Ferrari, whom he met in 1968, and with whom he remained until the artist’s death. She was involved in the organisation of his archive and in the publication of important editions of his work.

Both are buried here, in the convent church, in the centre of its single nave. The tombstone has no inscription, only a model leaning against it, as he had arranged, by his friend Renzo Piano, with whom he won the Imperial Prize of Japan in 1995. Here, the sacred and the profane are contaminated without hierarchy and merge. From his youth he was interested in religious themes and dedicated his architectural thesis to a temple of 147 religions.

On the altar lies an Indonesian Buddha, next to which rests an African totem crowned by the church’s Rococo angels, on whom he painted sly moustaches, in the style of Duchamp.

Matta seems to suggest, in a kind of universal installation, that spirit and artistic creation are, at bottom, one and the same. The walls are decorated with many of his works, some of them with religious themes, such as a large canvas dedicated to Pentecost where, instead of tongues of fire, hearts fall from the sky. Also noteworthy is a magnificent crucifix in resin, where man and cross merge. He explored the theme of the crucifixion in some works from the beginning of his career.

During his lifetime, this church served as his workshop; he took advantage of its spaciousness and light to create a variety of works. In Tarquinia he designed a variety of chairs. On the walls hang the last paintings he made with imaginary animals.

From NY to Rome

After his important experience in New York, Matta settled for five years (1949–1954) in Rome, at the end of the Second World War, at a time of enormous artistic and cultural effervescence in the city. It coincided with the transition between the misery of the post-war period, the economic boom and the influence of cinema. Rome became a magnet for Italian and foreign artists, and Matta was very prolific there, experiencing both crises and artistic discoveries.

He experienced the political romanticism left-wing movement that predominated in Italian cultural circles after the fall of fascism. He became fully integrated into this environment and exhibited in the best galleries.

Matta campaigned against all types of violence and authoritarianism, from the Vietnam War to the French May of 1968, which sparked student movements around the world. He spoke out with his art against capital punishment for alleged spies (as in Roses Are Beautiful, 1951), denounced the Chilean dictatorship (Passage from death to life, 1973), sympathized with the Cuban revolution and condemned the assassination of That Guevara, dedicating a painting to him in 1966. Perhaps no artist like Matta denounced and became so actively involved in the American crimes during the cold war.

After spending the summers in Tarquinia, Matta stayed there for long periods from the 1990s onwards. His sculptures in bronze or clay are scattered around the house and garden, creating a kind of stone forest of totemic figures that evoke the steles of Copán, in Honduras, fusing the archaic Mesoamerican tradition with the Mediterranean and the Oriental. This created – as the great Italian art historian Giuliano Briganti pointed out – a whole series of signs, shapes and anthropomorphic or geometric images that are only his.

There are also ceramic tables in the style of Verb America, the ceramic mural with a blue background and archaic figurines that he donated to the people of Chile, although here they are visibly deteriorated by the elements.

For Tarquinia, Matta made a bas-relief in a kindergarten and a pastel triptych entitled For the victims to win, as well as a mosaic outside the municipality. Matta had contact with the local community, who remember him as eccentric.

Matta is one of the greatest Latin American artists and among the most sought after, with an auction record at Christie’s New York in 2012, for the oil painting The Revolt of Opposites (La Révolte des Contraires, 1944), sold for more than $5 million.

The variety of exhibitions at this year’s recurring centenary of surrealism would suggest that Matta is in good health, although since his death he seems to have fallen into a kind of oblivion. Significantly, a tour of the main specialist bookshops in Rome, Paris and Madrid does not stock any of his books.

Major exhibitions have been held in Houston, Vienna and Los Angeles, while Venice will host the Ca’ Pesaro Museum from 25 October 2024 to 23 March 2025.