Exhibition Ramuntcho Matta • Galerie Anne Barrault

Life is a variable. That is a fact. Sometimes sweet, cruel, light or complicated, it is definitely changing. It is undisputably tangible as well. This is another fact, you cannot escape reality,its alienating specificities: there, you are subjected to something vague and constant anyway.
Ramuntcho Matta has worked out his project in this context worthy of Camus. Since it is not possible to shirk the reality of life, as well make use of it, play on it alone or in company, without denying its seriousness. Let go of dark lucidity to meet some kind of maybe more merciful “lucidity”.
Ramuntcho Matta offers to play and changes Gallery Anne Barrault into a large playground. For this purpose, he has made a series of games to play his life, as you play cards or hopscotch. Each object refers to a field dear to him because it is complex, irksome, unbearable, makes one vulnerable.
Two ventricle-shaped glass pieces, for example, represent love relations. Two split cavities which, according to their positions, reveal a condition, a mood, a possible or obvious disagreement. To play at telling things without telling them. Straight to the point, avoiding what is laborious to show what is essential.
You will find, too, the game with multiple yo-yo, one for each finger. This game of skill consists in making apple core-shaped pieces go up and down simultaneously. It is nearly impossible when dexterity and efficiency, virtually essential, become suddenly pointless and worthless. What is at stake here is the pleasure to try and be happy to do so. This is more important than the result.
For the game of illness, you must send chiselled blades at a crudely made, already weak-looking doll. These blades, with the indirect trademark of a pharmaceutical laboratory on them, seem like the medicines for a dangerous, deadly treatment. What is meant to cure, eventually, kills inevitably. With this game, by mingling the paradox with what is unfair and guilt, Ramuntcho Matta might well take us to what is most personal in him : Fear. Fear of existing, of suffering, of disappearing in the end. Fear of doing but that, of being but that.


	Lucidtainment 19 April - 31 May, 2008
Life is a variable. That is a fact. Sometimes sweet, cruel, light or complicated, it is definitely changing. It is undisputably tangible as well. This is another fact, you cannot escape reality,its alienating specificities: there, you are subjected to something vague and constant anyway. Ramuntcho Matta has worked out his project in this context worthy of Camus. Since it is not possible to shirk the reality of life, as well make use of it, play on it alone or in company, without denying its seriousness. Let go of dark lucidity to meet some kind of maybe more merciful “lucidity”. Ramuntcho Matta offers to play and changes Gallery Anne Barrault into a large playground. For this purpose, he has made a series of games to play his life, as you play cards or hopscotch. Each object refers to a field dear to him because it is complex, irksome, unbearable, makes one vulnerable. Two ventricle-shaped glass pieces, for example, represent love relations. Two split cavities which, according to their positions, reveal a condition, a mood, a possible or obvious disagreement. To play at telling things without telling them. Straight to the point, avoiding what is laborious to show what is essential. You will find, too, the game with multiple yo-yo, one for each finger. This game of skill consists in making apple core-shaped pieces go up and down simultaneously. It is nearly impossible when dexterity and efficiency, virtually essential, become suddenly pointless and worthless. What is at stake here is the pleasure to try and be happy to do so. This is more important than the result. For the game of illness, you must send chiselled blades at a crudely made, already weak-looking doll. These blades, with the indirect trademark of a pharmaceutical laboratory on them, seem like the medicines for a dangerous, deadly treatment. What is meant to cure, eventually, kills inevitably. With this game, by mingling the paradox with what is unfair and guilt, Ramuntcho Matta might well take us to what is most personal in him : Fear. Fear of existing, of suffering, of disappearing in the end. Fear of doing but that, of being but that.
		exhibition view
	This fear which apparently he wants to get rid of definitely is held in derision. It pervades his games as the artist hopes to make it trivial. Ramuntcho Matta does not want to live in colorless reality. He cannot. It is too painful. He must exist somewhere else, in absurdity and irony, another place where everything is easier, more spontaneous. He reaches it through play, we meet him through his creations. Frank Richard



	s'ouvrir le dé, 2008 aller voir ailleurs, 2008 Az-zahr, 2008 peinture acrylique et encre à pigment sur carton 20 x 20 cm