We are guided around the picture by a sequence of triangles: The suddenly illuminated section of bright green grass outside leads us down towards the young boy’s face, Pierre, whose eye is in turn overcast by a rhyming streak of black. This shadow, momentarily thrown by the flickering candle light beside him, acts as an arrow, directing our gaze to the sharp geometry of the metronome atop the piano; inexorable, keeping time, puncturing the wilder marks of the balcony’s ironwork behind him. Matisse’s 1916 painting ‘The Piano Lesson’ shows the living room of his home at Issy-les-Molineaux. This central movement through the work is enclosed by two figures: a straight-backed, straight-lined woman in the back corner; blank faced, terse, almost monochrome; and a representation of his 1908 sculpture ‘Decorative Figure’, who at the front is all curves, lying back, earthy brown, an image of relaxation. Discipline and sensuality are compared, contrasted, interlinked, and marked by the burning candle and metronome, past and future also.

In some senses simply a celebratory homage to a brilliant painting, this group show will take the opportunity to consider some of the many possible themes and avenues set up by Matisse’s work. This might happen on very direct, visual terms, as with Josef Strau’s piece, My Soul Is Filthy But Your Word to Me is Like the Lamp for the Thief on Your Heart (2010), consisting of a lamp beside an iron railing which is overcast by a shadow-like piece of black material. Elsewhere Matisse’s themes might be activated metaphorically. Hannah Sawtell’s new intervention comes in the form of an iron gate at the entrance of the gallery. Unable to access the works hanging behind it, we are swiftly forced to occupy the position of the boy in Matisse’s painting, who, under the watchful eye of his teacher, is unable to step outside and play on the grass glistening just beyond the balcony. This interior / exterior opposition will reappear throughout the show, guiding the hang, sometimes appearing as the dichotomy between work and play, focused concentration and more exploratory experimentation.

Markus Selg takes the small sculpture in Matisse’s painting as his point of departure for a new sculptural figure, setting it beside a handmade rug and a carved wooden chair (all works 2012). Charles Atlas on the other hand, in his film Cartridge Lengths 1 from 1970 (and one of the artist’s first) utilizes a single Super 8 cartridge length to record a dove fluttering around outside. Dancer-like, slightly trepid maybe, the dove moves around the lush grounds surrounding The Foundation Maeght where Atlas ended his first tour with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. DAS INSTITUT meanwhile complicate the issue with a tableaux-like series of hanging transparent rubber screens (2011).

Matisse’s painting might of course also be regarded more formally. Dianna Molzan breaks down painting to its fundamental material elements before rebuilding them in new, perhaps more physically aware, constellations. In a sense, she looks at what constitutes the apparatus of a painting, and, by extension, she dwells on the drama of presentation that takes place in the gallery, not unlike Will Benedict’s sideways glances at how images are channeled and what does the channeling. Directly evoking Matisse’s carefully balanced compositions are Michelle Abeles’ photographs (all 2011), which, as with Nicholas Byrne’s new painting, function on a series of stark colour relationships. Furthermore, Abeles’ photographs often feature a male nude: Pierre now all grown up perhaps? Or simply a compositional device, an object amongst other objects enclosed within the frame.

For further information or images please contact Martin Rasmussen: +44 (0)20 7729 9888 or: martin@vilmagold.com