Miami Biennale
Miami Biennale Events

Leo Matiz, The Expanded Eye

Acknowledgements

Leo Matiz (Aracataca, Colombia 1917 – Bogotá, Colombia 1998) is deemed by critics to be one of the great photographers of the 20th century. Restless by nature and a globetrotter extraordinaire, Matiz incessantly photographed all the Americas from North to South. He was also a photographer reporter and is the author of a series of portraits which comprise a mosaic that may be identified with all Latin America.

The opening of the Miami Biennale offers us the singular gaze of Leo Matiz focused on three themes, two of which occupied the artist since the mid-1940s until the latter half of the 1970s, namely, the world of vegetation and the much prized images of geometric abstraction. The third theme of this exhibition revolves around a hitherto completely unrecognized subject of Matiz which the Miami Biennale has discovered and presents for the first time: the University Campus of Caracas.

Leo Matiz photographs this masterpiece of contemporary Venezuelan architecture in every detail and the result is a set of precise and aseptic views which represent one of the most lucid moments of architectural photography in the 20th century.

Osbel Suárez

Curator

Leo Matiz Leo Matiz
Title: Cactus, Parque Chapultepec
Medium: Digital C-Print mounted on plexiglass
Country: Mexico, DF Year: 1941, Printed in 2010
Edition: Unique Size: 22 x 28 inches
Title: Luz y Sombra
Medium: Vintage Print
Country: Argentina Year: 1970
Edition: Unique Size: 8.46 x 7.40 inches
Leo Matiz Leo Matiz
Title: Puente de Angostura
Medium: Vintage Print
Country: Venezuela Year: 1965
Edition: Unique Size: 14.80 x 13.58 inches
Title: Cajas de Madera
Medium: Vintage Print
Country: Venezuela Year: 1951
Edition: Unique Size: 9.75 x 9.75 inches


Extended Inventory of Photography from the: Expanded Eye Collection