Graphical issues when opening an OpenGL program from MATLAB

I use the finite element visualizer GLVis, based on OpenGL. When I run it from the terminal, it works as it should. However, when I open it from within MATLAB using the system command, the graphics is hardly visible, see here: https://imgur.com/a/hoQuc . I observed the following:

• It persists with different MATLAB versions and different Linux operating systems
• The background is totally white except when there is something behind it (like in the second picture I attached).
• If the background behind the openGL application is black, everything is totally fine.
• I get no error messages when opening the program from MATLAB. The same console output is returned.

What can cause this behaviour? One ugly solution would be to create a full screen black patch plot in MATLAB and open the OpenGL program after it. Is there a better workaround?