Matisse. Metamorfosi

The catalog “Matisse Metamorphosis,” edited by Chiara Gatti, director of the MAN Museum in Nuoro, documents the Italian leg of a major international exhibition project conceived by Sandra Gianfreda, curator of the Kunsthaus Zürich, with Claudine Grammont, former director of the Musée Matisse in Nice.

The exhibition reveals a lesser-known aspect of Matisse’s artistic practice but certainly as significant as painting, graphics and papiers découpés, namely his sculptural production, scattered throughout his life. As he himself reiterated, what interested him most was the figure and its representation, and sculpture – of which “Matisse Metamorphoses” offers a wide selection – constitutes an important strand of his research, which also constantly investigates the model of non-Western arts.

Accompanied by two enlightening essays by Sandra Gianfreda, who contextualizes Matisse’s work as a sculptor within the context of his artistic journey and the historian of his exhibitions, and by Bärbel Küster, who situates it in relation to the temporal dimension and Bergson’s philosophy, the catalog, which also reproduces numerous period photographs of great documentary interest, stands in the literature on Matisse as an indispensable reference text.

CURATOR
Chiara Gatti – Director of the MAN Museum in Nuoro. An art historian, critic and curator, she collaborates with “La Repubblica” and the monthly “Arte,” has contributed to the Treccani Encyclopedia of Art and written with Lea Vergine L’arte non è faccenda di persone perbene (2016) and curated exhibitions nationally and internationally.