Ramuntcho Matta a visual artist and musician

Ramuntcho Matta: “My method, the accident”

Visual artist and musician, he visited Buenos Aires to “create situations” in an exhibition with five Argentine artists.
At the Hunters Foundation.
Ramuntcho Matta was born in Paris in 1960. He is one of the six children of the great Chilean artist Roberto Matta, although they became linked late in the life of the representative of Latin American surrealism and abstract expressionism. About the link, Ramuntcho made a film, a documentary that he says is a bit boring that he sends to everyone who asks him about his famous father. Since he and his brothers stayed with the image – another of his brothers was Gordon Matta-Clark – he dedicated himself to the sound. And he became an exquisite musician in the Parisian underground scene. But he is also a visual artist – he was an assistant in Roberto's workshop and learned a lot of technique, he says in an interview with Ñ.

Ramuntcho arrived in Buenos Aires to “generate situations” around some paintings that he had sent by mail before the covid-19 pandemic, when this exhibition began to take shape, which today can be visited at the Cazadores Foundation. Curated by Eduardo Stupía and Virginia Fabri, Multi/medium presents Matta's vital visual work in dialogue with pieces by five local artists: María Marta Fasoli, Florencia Walfisch, Anna-Lisa Marjak, Sofía Mastai and Alec Franco.

The Cazadores Foundation room, where Multi/medium is exhibited. The Cazadores Foundation room, where Multi/medium is exhibited.
In his Europeanized Spanish, Ramuntcho expands on the ideas and generational, spiritual and emotional links that describe him, including the Beat Generation, Félix Guattari and Chris Marker.

-What part of your work can be seen here in Buenos Aires?

-My idea is how artists can help make the world less worse. The idea started ten years ago, because it is not simple to do things, even with yourself. Artists have a small advantage: they have time to measure the sensible world. I didn't know how to start. I made some large drawings, on torn paper, I sent them by mail and five or six arrived, two were lost. And it was perfect, because I was able to complete the entire mural without the two missing ones.

-A thing of destiny.

-Destiny helps you, always. When a terrible thing happens to you it is the occasion of your life. He had a brother named Batán who killed himself through the window. And my mother took me to see a psychologist who tells me: what are you doing this summer? Well, I was 16 years old, bicycle, guitar. She invited me to her clinic, to help people, not just patients. It is interesting how a person in a fragile situation can help. That guy was called Felix Guattari, the philosopher, and I started working with him. With the luck of my brother who died.

Ramuntcho Matta's mural was intervened by Argentine artists during a press meeting, prior to the inauguration. Ramuntcho Matta's mural was intervened by Argentine artists during a press meeting, prior to the inauguration.
Two years later, my other brother, Gordon Matta Clark, died of cancer. And he called me his best friend, Jonas Nonas, and he said, “Now that Gordon is dead, you come with me: I'm your brother.” I started living in New York with all of my brother's friends who adopted me. Again it was lucky. Every situation can be transformed at times. That's my line of work. And the show that is called Multi/mediun is because I don't have a particular form: I make sound, I paint, what I love is creating situations, and here the situation is working with Argentine artists. I like to use the situation to create a little displacement. It makes me think about the difference between being underground and being avant-garde, which is not the same thing.

-What is the difference?

-The difference is your relationship, what you do with your roots. You can talk with your blood and that has no merit. I have this blood, from my mother above all. She was great: she was 80 percent of my dad's job, that should be known. A woman with a mixed-race father in the US who is very sensitive to segregation. She said it has to do with what roots you grow. We can have a blood father and mother, which can be a drama, but you can also choose who will be your spiritual or writing mother. Since my dad was a surrealist, I was interested in how this story of a movement, of a move, is created. The key to everything...