Exhibition of Henri Matisse at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel – Culture

Henri Matisse, like many avant-gardists, is a victim not of his time, but of ours. The decoration industry has extensively exploited his clear colors, his sense of structures and patterns, and has been inspired by even the most tasteless blouse, the most over-the-top wallpaper, the silliest ties and socks. Even a rose bears his name. The Frenchman has made it into mass taste, and yet much of his art goes against today’s ideas. What would he, if he could travel back in time, say about the debates about “leading culture” on the one hand and “cultural appropriation” on the other? Both concepts must irritate him, as they assume that identities are something fixed with clear boundaries to the other. But that was not the spirit of the moderns in Paris in the early 20th century.