A Masterly Exhibition of Francisco Infante Opens at the New Tretyakov

A masterly exhibition of Francisco Infante has opened at the New Tretyakov. "Metaphors of Infinity" is a colossal retrospective of Infante's entire oeuvre, from the earliest works to the newest series. What strikes one first is the extraordinary architecture: no walls at all, every work hovers in the air, as do Francisco Infante's own artefacts, which he has been making for the best part of fifty years. It is hard to say how the display could have been better arranged. I have never seen a more beautiful and coherent exhibition in Hall 61 of the New Tretyakov.

It is remarkable that over so many years the work of Infante-Arana has not crumbled into separate stories, but has held to the key of one great concept: the structure of the universe, harmony, infinity and the invisible geometry of space. It is no accident that the installation at the entrance greets us with a paraphrase of one of Francisco Infante's first works: the birth of the vertical.

One of my favourite artists, a beautiful exhibition, a fine selection of 400 works from the Tretyakov's own collection (perhaps a third of the total), from the artist's archive, and, very selectively, from private collections.

I very much recommend going, and seeing a Tretyakov organised in a completely new way. The central pieces, to my mind, are the mirror objects, brought together for the first time in many years (they are held in different collections; the cross and the circle are in the Tretyakov Gallery). These are figures that run through Infante's work, that fundamentally shaped his recognisable aesthetic and threw a bridge from conceptual and kinetic art to the avant-garde. The artist himself for a long time did not regard them as separate works of art, considering them merely an intermediate tool for producing a finished photographic artefact. It is precisely for this reason that only a handful of his many landmark constructions have survived.

Our living classic of contemporary art shows the labours of his whole life in a strikingly authentic context, in the halls of the country's largest museum. A catalogue with excellent essays has been published for the exhibition, and a film from the Tretyakov's "The Artist Speaks" series is on show, so there is a chance to see and hear the artist himself. This is worth seeing, and you will remember it all your life.