An itinerary of research by Luciana Matalon

In the extensive artistic repertory by Luciana Matalon the presence of the initially scientific-technological and then those psychological-philosophical contributions - particularly in the most recent works - seems evident to me, given that I consider an exclusively aesthetic reading of her art to be a reductive one.

To combine the stupefaction that derived from the space endeavours of the 1960's and 1970's with painting was for Matalon like joyfully entering wonderland, illusory although not too much so given that human progress made the romantic effort of passing the new Pillars of Hercules something real, an effort in order to reach the mysteries of the cosmos.

The recurrent iconography of this first period of her production - i.e., the planets with their luminous grandiosity or else the pre-adamitical suns overlying weavings of cosmic forests - made the ordo rationalis something concrete in which the reference to the real certainly exists but was not of primary importance given that it was filtered by a psychic and fantastic substratum. In other words, the emotional impact with news events of the day - and in our case this means the exploration of Space - was manipulated by the ever-present meditative attitude and approach on the part of the Milanese artist: she annulled the contingency of the event, reconstructing its universal value (obviously with pictorial instruments). Thus we have the calligraphic chromatism, for instance: pure, intense and profound which acts as a support to the spherical forms in their organic unity with the surrounding space. Exemplary in this sense are some works documented in the catalogue of the exhibition held at the Galerie Burdeke in Zurich in 1975: "Foresta cosmica" [Cosmic Forest], "Pianeta "Amir" ["Amir" Planet], "Alba cosmica" [Cosmic Dawn] and "Foresta astrale" n.1 and Foresta astrale n. 2 [Astral Forest nos. 1 and 2].

Sometimes in these works of the 1970's the graphic pictorial element is accentuated in such a way that the reiterated presence of the sign gives rise to a cosmological-psychological dualism, a sign which gratifies itself in streaking uncontrollable trajectories so as to form a polyphonic veiling that often restricts the spherical forms (and in this respect one should see Solitudine [Solitude], reproduced in the above-mentioned catalogue). In fact, the clearly symbolic graphic weavings - of states of mind like the bewilderment and awe when faced by the mysterious abyss of life - then dissolve: we have the luminous intensity and the sharpness of the outlines of the celestial bodies. It is the assembly or graphical weaving that acted as a trait d'union for Matalon's successive production (see the wonderful cycles entitled Dagli scavi della memoria [From the Excavations of the Memory] and Archeologia del pensiero [Archaeology of Thought]: on the one hand the assertion of limit (that is, the awareness of the constant limit of the eclipse); and, on the other, that invitation to take part in a living reality beyond the labyrinth that perennially demands interpretation. This reference by the artist to the 'limit' is extremely interesting: if it is true that we do not know where mankind might arrive by way of scientific progress then it is also true that we know where mankind will never arrive as the result of its limitedness.

Matalon gives herself over to the contemplation of the new world - no longer the cosmic but that of the psyche - with the same devoted and exuberant passion: she ideally emulsifies the 'veil' represented by the sign arabesque from which bidimensional-frontal images are self-generated. And at the same time she lets herself be 'captured' by an innate playful desire à la Penelope. The formative nature of the sign is consubstantiated both in terms of images and in the structural weavings, seductive in their allusive modularity at times to aeropainting topographical maps.

We are at this point in a new period of Matalon's artistic production, with specific reference to the psyche.

Introspection, imagination, rendings, pulsations that overflow, imprints of exegeses always in fieri, the attempt at arriving at the roots of the mind, matteric thicknesses alongside smoothed and brilliant surfaces, tangles of mineral colours, imprints erased although not completely, and therefore sufficient for the analyst. The demiurge Matalon feels attracted by this great forest of the unconscious, following its paths which are furrows, cuts, wounds, light breezy places in order to introduce, in order to conceal-reveal the prodigious wealth of the Ego beyond the mesh. The content appears as if by way of allusions, according to the classical canons of the poetic of the fragment, also heeding the vitalistic spirit of the artist whose gesture - in the moment of producing weaves - is sudden, frenetic to the point of violating constructivist laws. But that is how it is. The unconscious is at least
a-rational, always tortuous and irregular and forcefully baroque in its interlacings.

Symbolically the gothic cathedrals reaching toward space painted by Matalon in the first years of her pictorial career gave way to the baroque cathedrals of the Ego: a certain evolution and the assimilation of a culture of an existentialist type which has influenced contemporary art to such a great degree.

In the two moments referred to, of the sounding of the universe and then of the Ego, Matalon has as if it were carried out a journey respectively in space and time: a time which has left its mark, its graffiti in the memory and in the psyche - and the title of her most recent works is indeed suggestive: Archeologia della psiche - giving an aura of sacredness, of medieval silence. Her paintings and sculptures now become pages written with very ancient alphabets to be deciphered, sections of centuries-old trunks whose expressive power is also entrusted to the concentric strata of the wood. And the chromatically stressed tonality of the penitential frock efficaciously interacts in the compositions. However, rather than acting as a brake the Lent melancholy of the colour in my opinion exalts the tangible preciousness which is always to be found in Matalon and which is totally apologetic in the sculptures, the small bronzes and in the jewellery to which the artist has paid considerable attention.

The pictorial space in these works of archaeological anamnesis - and differing here from the cosmic period - is denied as depth and exalted as surface in such a way as to assimilate ideograms that are mostly arranged in a circular and stratified form.

In Matalon the exaltation of the space as surface is flanked by the use of elementary, filiform neumes like genetic molecules that are rigidly structured with design intensity, 'swarming' as in a magnetic field. The 'game' appears refined and the journey back in time represents the thanatology of the real which confidentially gives way to the epiphany of the logos.

Leo Strozzieri
September 1989