ART CITIES: Madrid-Matt Mullican

Since the 1970s, Matt Mullican has been interested in models for explaining the world. He has developed a complex system of symbols consisting of various pictograms and colors as a means of tackling the question of the structure of the world, and with his system he aims to portray in symbols every aspect of the human condition in different combinations.  Every color has a specific symbolic value attached to it. For example, green stands for material, blue for the everyday world, yellow for ideas, white and black for language and red for the subjective.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Mai 36 Galerie

Matt Mullican’s solo exhibition features his large-format “rubbings,” a hybrid medium combining elements of printmaking, drawing, and painting. These works are created by carving wooden panels and then transferring their designs onto primed, colored canvases using oil sticks. Mullican views rubbing as the earliest form of reproduction, aligning these pieces with a historical tradition of image, text, and data transfer. The exhibition presents seven rubbings that delve into essential questions central to Mullican’s artistic journey, including his investigations into reality and perception, themes he began exploring in the 1970s during his student years. A key work in the exhibition, “Untitled (Carbon)” from 2014, is the sole text-based piece and is linked to Mullican’s five-color scheme, representing the “green world” or “world of elements.” Over decades, Mullican has developed a personal visual language using five recurring colors, each symbolizing a distinct “world.” In his system, green represents the material world; blue stands for everyday life; yellow signifies culture and science; black and white correspond to language; and red embodies subjective experience. This structured yet symbolic palette serves as a framework through which Mullican examines human existence and perception. In “Untitled (Element and Empty Interior Space)”, also from 2014, the yellow field symbolizes a fictional studio that Mullican first conceptualized in his drawings in 1973. Within this imagined studio lives a stick figure named “Glenn,” a character Mullican created and continues to explore in his work. Through Glenn, Mullican investigates human perception and our capacity for empathy toward fictional beings, aiming to reveal how even the simplest representations of life, such as a stick figure, evoke a sense of vitality and presence. This exploration of perception continues in “Untitled (City and Light Patterns)”, which features a color grid reminiscent of Mullican’s 1972 light experiments. These experiments embody his belief that everything we perceive is ultimately patterns of light. This concept applies universally, whether we are observing the physical world or engaging with fictional ones, as seen in photographs, comics, or mundane objects like a cup of coffee. This interconnectedness between reality and fiction is further explored in “Untitled (Tintin’s World Framed to Elements at the Center)” created in 2018. This work incorporates a multicolored detail from a Tintin comic, underscoring Mullican’s notion of fictional reality and its parallels to our tangible experience. The exhibition also delves into Mullican’s cosmological model, a comprehensive schema designed to explain human existence from before birth to after death. This model mirrors the cosmologies of ancient cultures, which sought to define humanity’s place within the universe. Mullican first articulated this concept in the early 1980s through a series of 40 drawings titled “Untitled (Details of the Cosmology)”. In this series, he deconstructs his cosmology into 40 individual steps, each representing an element of the broader model. The exhibition’s narrative concludes with “Untitled (Between Chapters)”, a black-and-white frottage from Mullican’s sketchbook completed in 2022. This work encapsulates his cosmological model in a circular scheme, representing birth and death as interconnected points within an endless, cyclical flow of life. The work emphasizes the dual material and spiritual aspects of existence, illustrating how these elements converge in a perpetual cycle. Mullican’s exhibition not only highlights his unique approach to artistic media but also offers profound insights into human perception, fictional realities, and the interconnected nature of life. Through his distinctive use of rubbings, colors, and cosmological frameworks, Mullican invites viewers to reflect on the ways we construct, interpret, and relate to the world around us. By weaving together themes of materiality, light, and imagination, his works form a complex narrative that challenges conventional distinctions between the real and the imaginary.

Photo: Matt Mullican, Untitled (Model), 2022, oil stick rubbing and gouache on canvas, 78.74 x 78.74 in (200 x 200 cm), © Matt Mullican, Courtesy the artist and Mai 36 Gallery

Info: Mai 36 Galerie , C. Sancho Dávilla 4, MadridSpain, Duration: 16/11/2026-6/2/2025, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 11:00–14:00 & 16:00–19:00, Sat 11:00–14:00, https://mai36.com/