Mostra "Matisse. Il mondo in una stanza" - MUDEC
The MUDEC in Milan presents Matisse. The World in a Room, an exhibition exploring how African, Islamic, Russian, Chinese and Pacific cultures shaped the language of Henri Matisse (1869–1954), redefining the boundaries of Western modernism.
Curated by Ellen McBreen and Chiara Gatti in collaboration with the Musée Matisse in Nice, the exhibition brings together more than 100 works – paintings, drawings and sculptures – from major international museums such as MoMA, the Musée d'Orsay and the Quai Branly, alongside objects, textiles, artist's books and previously unseen photographs taken by Matisse in Morocco.
Far from a generic reference to the "Orient," the exhibition foregrounds hybridization: Islamic arabesques, Romanian geometries, Yoruba masks and Russian icons coexist in his works, revealing the complexity of an imagination nourished by distant worlds, at the origin of one of the most experimental visual languages of the twentieth century.
Mudec – Museo delle Culture Via Tortona 56, MilanoAvailable itineraries
Standard Route
"Matisse. The World in a Room" is an exhibition itinerary at MUDEC in Milan that explores the profound dialogue between Henri Matisse and non-European cultures. Through 8 thematic sections, the exhibition places the master's masterpieces alongside a rare collection of African, Islamic, Chinese, and Polynesian objects and textiles from his studios. The itinerary reveals how the encounter with otherness redefined the artist's language from within, transforming the intimate space of his studio into a window wide open onto the world.
Itinerary for children
"Matisse. The world in a room" is an itinerary that tells the story of the encounter between the painter Henri Matisse and the art of distant cultures, from other continents.
The exhibition is divided into 8 sections, each with a different theme. In each section you will find, alongside Matisse's most important paintings, real objects and fabrics, arrived from Africa, from Islamic countries, from China and from Polynesia. These are rare objects, and Matisse kept them in his ateliers, that is the rooms where he painted.
Following the itinerary you will understand how getting to know these different cultures changed Matisse's way of painting from within.
