"Who writes in this space
dominating the anguish of distance?"


When Luciana Matalon made her debut around the middle of the 1960's her attention was immediately solicited by the matteric experiences of Alberto Burri. Her first canvases seemed littered with materials covered with thick and dense cobwebs. And yet the emphasis was not placed on the retrieval of the past. No nostalgia whatsoever. On the artist's part there was not the desire to save some ancient find or other (even if explicit allusions to archaeology were not lacking). In fact, it was neither a question of objects 'revisited' nor of corners of the memory (although also these were evoked on more than one occasion).
What this work 'staged' from the beginning was the play of presence and absence, of closeness and distance. It is perhaps useful to remember that in studying the behaviour of children in their first years of life Freud observed a 'move' on the part of a grandson, something which made him curious. Every time the child's mother went out of the house the little boy would take a reel of thread, throwing it to the foot of the bed and saying fort [out] to then call it back to him by murmuring da [here].
For Freud this was a revelation. By acting in this way with his fort/da the child tried to control his anxiousness, attempting to exorcize the - temporary - loss of his mother, sending away something which he immediately brought back beside him, in this way anticipating - and almost preparing - the return of his mother. The anguish of distance could therefore be dominated by way of a game: the original meaning of present/absent and of near/distant was now revealed.

In a work of 1971 - forming part of a private collection and consequently not exhibited on this occasion - the movement activated by Matalon could or might be related to the game of fort/da: lying behind the matteric tears of what we have called a cobweb one sees a red and glowing solar disk. It is here, in the 1 x 1_ metres of Cathédrale dans l'espace [Cathedral in Space], contained within the most suffocating closeness, that space then opens onto something remote, onto something behind itself.
It should be added immediately that the stellar element which emerged was subsequently to be the object of a protracted evolution, up until the most recent works in which here and there it is still nevertheless possible to observe remains of the matteric element from which our discussion began. They are like little tangles, small relief clutters which have their place in large compositions that make one think of aerial views. The oppositional principle we observed from Luciana Matalon's first works has therefore been preserved over the years. In saying this one does not so much wish to underline a coherence - which, basically, it is not necessary to demand from an artist - but rather a thread, a datum to follow in order to enter Luciana Matalon's world. A thread that is not broken and which is therefore valid as a guide.

It is certainly not necessary to proceed by way of a chronological line. Rather, the evolution of a work is better and more clearly measured if one starts out from the final results from which, subsequently, one can go back in time. And this is even more true of Matalon who from the 1980's has coupled the plastic with her pictorial activity, at times according to complementary modules while at others in a totally autonomous way.
There is a passage, however, a transition which it is well to analyze. This is at one and the same time an extension and a simplification of the matteric element which intervenes as a covering weft and sometimes also as a structural datum in the works bridging the 1970's-1980's decade. In reality it is a spinning, a system of threads, painted or inserted on the surface of the work by way of collage. The lines seem to be born from a mesh, hence from a matteric datum (in Viaggio nel tempo [Voyage in Time] of 1977, for example). Although their extension becomes structural when the artist uses them as a 'joining' between one element of the painting and another. In consequence it seems that the parts stay together by means of stitchings, of a certain number of 'frankings' that iron a piece of canvas or a mass (as is true in Tragedy of Error of 1976, for example).
And so by way of ironing one arrives at the oblong forms which are arranged crosswise in the multiple panels of the series entitled Archeologia del pensiero [Archaeology of Thought]. We are at the beginning of the 1980's. Here one has the change, the decisive passage. Luciana Matalon progressively moved away from what we have called the 'cobweb'. In its place one has the creation of a crowding of elements, initially also figurative but soon to become scriptural.

The threads now give way to a dense and arcane writing. Only rarely do some legible words appear in the midst of the increasingly more expansive diffusion of signs organized as in ancient Sumerian, Assyro-Babylonian or Hebrew writings.
Luciana Matalon's discourse at this point leaves behind her historical informal and matteric research in order to set out towards the zone of "sign communication" which during those years characterized a wide field of research, ranging from visual poetry to conceptual art.
The scriptural archaeological element is clearly seen in a series of panels which appear to be ancient fragments, finds, documents corroded and devastated by time. The stellar research is not abandoned (that is, the deployment of wide-ranging open spaces, often organized like true aerial views, or otherwise cut into sections as in improbable maps). Also here, however, the threads are substituted by the new writing which appears to be the most successful element from among the various ones brought into play.
Writing, therefore. But of what? Some naturalistic traces make their appearance within the sign tangle. A technique of superimposition and of rents, it presents some surfaces covered by a full, ramified flowering. The colour in the meantime was evolving in relation to the spatial and constructive element (with some 'incursions' in which the effects were experimented and made more aggressive). Particularly functional was the insertion of red stripes/strips which cut out different zones in the canvas with an accentuation at times dramatic and at times also decorative. Whether it resembles a flash of lightning or a river, this broad red thread that crosses the work furnishes its true orchestration, the point of suture and unification of the elements.
In some cases they are real narrative notes that are required, as in the very recent sequence arranged upwards - Nelle paludi del tempo, la lanterna rossa [In the Swamps of Time, red light] of 2000 - in which a beacon stands out, preceded towards the bottom by a cell surmounted by the same theme of the grid/bars and by other strong figurative elements.

The most recent works - the sequence entitled Diario luglio/agosto 2000 [Diary of July/August 2000] and Nelle paludi del ricordo [In the Swamps of the Memory] - constitute a decisive superseding of the abstract component. The unstable equilibrium between indeterminateness and abstraction, on the one hand, and the matteric character and pure sign datum, on the other, here by now appears to be broken. The result is totally in favour of a new and extensively discursive phase - if by discursive one means the ordered development of a quantity of details drawn from the most diverse spheres (not to mention the elements cited above). The biographical detail is now combined with a literary detail, of the novel, once again - and always -passing by way of those archaeological strata already so dear to Matalon. Although the 'cementing' factor remains that of the writing. And also here with some differences. In fact, there is an increasingly lesser archaeological use of writing, instead developing itself as an intimate diary, as 'idiolectic' writing, even at times as calligraphy. Some ciphers/sums, some accounts, some notes or some lists to an ever greater degree lead towards the coded discourse, personal and pertaining to the diary. The work profits in both variety and efficacy. A new affective tonality seems to be making headway. The course from abstraction to narration is certainly a long one although here it really appears to have already been entirely run.

Regarding her sculpture, one should immediately note the use of fusion materials which unequivocally indicate Matalon's commitment within the plastic field. The most distinct "pictorial" element to be found on the metal surfaces is certainly the scriptural one which intervenes as a shading, an extended 'hatching' on many of the lines that make up the sculpture.
Extensively investigated during the Twentieth Century, in Luciana Matalon the tradition of the stele is given a narrative-anthropological reading. To put it more clearly, it is as if in every stele one has the superimposed falling from above of rosettes, windows, stairs and spires. The result is an impossible space, completely fictitious, similar - albeit with diverse connotation - to those impossible ladders/stairs which are the torment and delight of a builder of Babels like Escher.
The anthropological aspect comes from some notes that one could call Indian, intending those dwellings hollowed out in the rock and unevenly connected by high 'stairways' typical of certain Indian tribes of Central America.
The rigidly ascensional aspect of these works does not suffer from this, however. If anything, what is avoided is the too meagre and bare, the rigidly geometrical character of certain entirely pointed columns. Here in the cascade of Matalon's almost narrative elements - in Obelisco [Obelisk] of 1990, for example - whatever technological closure is overcome by the dense alternation of the superimpositions.

More markedly anthropological, as is immediately indicated by the title Totem, is a bronze piece (also clearly ascensional) which besides the figure of the wheel and the spiral is decorated with the bill or beak of some ancient animal to which the totemic element is referred.
Mythical-magical derivations can be found in other works. Evident in Teotihuacan is the citing of ancient places of Aztec worship. The partially destroyed sphere which tops the pyramid then returns in also very different contexts. In particular we can mention a series of spatial volutes, rotating about the central round body.
We should especially mention Casellario della memoria [Pigeon-holes of the Memory], a bronze of considerable size that is the result of a two-fold work procedure: on the one hand it is articulated with a diffused play of writing while on the other, instead, it exalts the relationship of the fulls and empties as in an inlay by way of the many and tiny slits which are illuminated by the space behind (and this element is the most important novelty of the piece). The mobile and refined effect is enriched by way of the intersecting in the central zone of the 'teeth' of two 45° surfaces which interweave.

The narrative and vaguely magical spirit which surrounds Luciana Matalon's most recent pictorial works also returns in an equally recent sculpture. The only one on exhibit - although part of a series no longer in the artist's possession - it is not fortuitously entitled Architetture oniriche [Oneiric Architectures]. As can be easily seen by anyone, here some forms suspended from a few wires suggest a habitation situation - a castle? - which is particularly light and successful.
Naturally the discussion regarding presence/absence and closeness/distance has no reason to exist given that we are talking about sculptural works which by their very nature lay claim to a precise consistency in the real space open before the spectator. However, it is perhaps useful to consider how from among so many Voyages in Time and so many Stellar Archaeologies (the titles of a number of works) the function of the stele is precisely that of marking out a territory, of keeping also time-remote events alive within the present. It is the present in this case which vindicates its own space, even if the past constitutes the efficient cause, the motivation that has brought about the 'birth' of this particular sign. Entrusted to all the successive presents, each stele keeps alive and even shows - as far as this is possible - that fragment of the past which it has handed down to us in such a way that we might have it in front of us.

In conclusion, before us we have the image of thirty years of work by an artist. The image of a research that has not been insensitive to the various movements of the times it passed through. Certainly, she has interpreted Matteric Abstraction and some traits of the Informal, rapidly creating ample spaces of autonomy. The fact of having included in those beginnings both preoccupations and instances that were also very diverse was very important for Luciana Matalon. Lettrisme, visual poetry in the most different forms in the various graphic pagings or those of tendencies, born from the Beat or Fluxus movements, led to new changes in a work which as its constant factor has always imposed a compositional rigour upon itself. Also the tones of the various works have confronted each other with a forceful dramatic approach in which, as the other pole, some fiery oneiric and playful inclusions are not lacking. For example, Pop Art was only just 'brushed' in the case in which a minidress of the artist was glued to canvas, although with an effect having nothing to do with mass media. The dramatic accentuation has further manifested itself in the penetrating and keen forms of the sculptures. Whether it is a stele or a canvas, it is evident that the objective of the research always remains the visual rendering of a situation, of a spatial and emotive intuition in which Luciana Matalon's function is never secondary. Irrespective of the aesthetics of depersonalization, this work is deliberately 'signed': that is, in the always repeated and varied characters of an alphabet it bears the written signs of both a personality and a body.

Ermanno Krumm

Translated by Howard Rodger MacLean