MALT and A New Geometry: Urban Cubism

Malt's new exhibition “Pictorial Language” references the geometric abstraction of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque

MALT, Bronze Age No. 17, 2025

In MALT’s new exhibition, PICTORIAL LANGUAGE he refines his signature geometric deconstruction of form drawing clear lines back to the early 20th-century innovations of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque - the co-founders of Cubism. Like Picasso’s “Still Life with a Bottle of Rum” (1911) or "Three Musicians" (1921) and Braque’s “Violin and Palette” (1909), MALT fractures visual reality into overlapping planes and rhythmic structures. However, while the Cubists were invested in breaking apart objects to explore space, time, and perception, MALT’s approach feels more graphic, architectural, and deliberate - grounded in a language shaped by street art, design, and contemporary urbanism.

Pablo Picasso, Still Life with a Bottle of Rum, 1911

“While MALT’s work borrows the formal strategies of early Cubism - fragmentation, layering, flattening - it repurposes them with intention and specificity.”

Georges Braque, Violin and Palette, 1909

In Bronze Age No.17, MALT builds densely layered compositions where birdlike forms emerge through sharp edges, angular symmetry, and controlled movement. The influence of Braque is felt in the musicality of the piece and how forms interlock - but MALT's execution is cleaner, with a harder edge and a flatter, design-forward aesthetic. His palette of black, white, gray, and metallic bronze gives the work a restrained yet bold sensibility, offering echoes of ancient materiality through a modern lens.

MALT, Pictorial Language No. 10, 2025

“Where Braque and Picasso sought to undo illusion, MALT builds a new one - constructed from codes, symbols, and precision - rooted in the city and ready for flight.”

Pablo Picasso, Three Musicians, 1921

Meanwhile, Bronze Age No.11 stands out for a subtle but surreal detail: a single photorealistic bird’s eye embedded in an otherwise abstract, minimal form. The visual jolt is a moment of realism that neither Picasso nor Braque would have likely employed. This rupture suggests MALT is not simply continuing a tradition, but subverting it - bringing the past into conversation with a hypervisual, surveilled, and symbol-saturated present.

MALT, Bronze Age, No. 11, 2025

MALT, Pictorial Language No. 4 and No. 6, 2025

Ultimately, while MALT’s work borrows the formal strategies of early Cubism - fragmentation, layering, flattening - it repurposes them with intention and specificity. His birds are not merely abstracted shapes, but icons of an urban ecosystem: watched and watching, mythic and mechanical. Where Braque and Picasso sought to undo illusion, MALT builds a new one - constructed from codes, symbols, and precision - rooted in the city and ready for flight.

Author: MELANNIE CHARD