Display of The Open Cube by Matta

Location: Room 46, ground floor.

Having been seen at the Museum in 2011, and after that in Chile and Germany, the installation of Matta’s cycle L’Honni aveuglant (The dazzling Outcast) has now returned. Comprising five works by the Chilean artist from the Museum’s permanent collection, it is now on permanent display in Room 46.

A large-format background canvas entitled Great Expectations; two lateral ones, The dazzling Outcast and The Where at Flood Tide; and two suspended from the ceiling, Where Madness Dwells A and Where Madness dwells B, together constitute what Matta termed his Open Cube.

Through this unique and spectacular installation Matta aimed to envelop the spectator in his pictorial universe, charged with literary, spiritual and artistic references. Rather than locating the viewer in front of the work of art in the manner of a window, Matta introduces us into it, placing us in the centre of the cube as if we were one of its six sides and making us feel totally possessed by the painting. The present installation exactly reproduces the way the artist presented it for the first time at the Galerie Alexandre Iolas in Paris in 1966.

The visit to the display is included in the fee and opening times of the Permanent Collections.

Visit the 2011 Microsite