Discover the work of Marta Minujín in the ‘Love is Louder' exhibition. 

Have you ever felt a sudden, irrepressible attraction, as though you were drawn to someone you’d only just met? Have you experienced a magical spark when you lock eyes with someone, when time stands still to give birth to love? Have you ever had an intense, compelling craving for emotional connection and physical fusion so irrational that it seems inexorable? 

Such is the powerful, eerie sensation of love at first sight that Argentinian artist Marta Minujín sought to portray in Amor a primera vista (2007). Part painting, part sculpture, Amor a primera vista features mattresses and pieces of foam rubber covered in ticking-woven cloth assembled by the artist and painted with brightly coloured stripes. This bundle of interpenetrating, soft, organic forms gives an abstract, sensual representation of love at first sight. It conjures up images of bodies embracing, arms and legs intertwining as they merge in the frantic turmoil of passion. 

Speaking about this piece, Marta Minujín declared: “I believe in love as I believe in art. I believe in love at first sight. Some people never find it. But I married him when I was 16 and I’ve been with him all my life. Now he’s gone. But I continue to believe in love.” Since love is a recurrent theme in the work of this Pop Art pioneer, is there a better material to evoke it than a mattress, with its plush consistency and silent presence in our intimate lives? 

Already in 1963, caught up in the sexual revolution and inspired – in her own words – by a colourful striped miniskirt, Marta Minujín moved away from used ‘colchones blandos’ (soft mattresses) and started manufacturing her own. She designed soft, habitable sculptures that could be explored, such as The Love Room (1963) – a colourful mattress-covered chamber where participants were invited to sleep, think, dream and love. Her second participatory installation, entitled ¡Revuélquese y viva! (1964), was no longer an invitation but an injunction: “Have sex and live!” It incarnated the emergence of feminist political art in the conservative Argentina of that time. 

With her platinum blonde hair, eyes hidden by sunglasses, Marta Minujín is a brilliant artist and an impertinent, charismatic figure. Throughout a career spanning more than six decades, Minujín has tackled the preoccupations of numerous avant-garde artistic movements as well as Argentinian and international politics with abundant freedom and clarity. Marta Minujín’s pursuit of a radically dynamic art form – ‘vivir en arte’ (live in art) is her motto – has established her as a precursor of happenings, performances, participatory environments and mass media art. 

The sheer breadth and diversity of her astonishing and unbridled work from the 1960s to today testify to her boundless creativity and her unfailing faith in art, love and life. Wars, dictatorships, financial crashes... Never mind! There will always be love, joy and colour. Sometimes to rejoice, sometimes to provoke. 

Discover the work of Marta Minujín in the ‘Love is Louder' exhibition.