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.