Gordon Matta-Clark

Description

This book is a monograph on the legendary American artist Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978), considered one of the most important artists of the second half of the twentieth century.

Born in New York and trained in architecture, Gordon Matta-Clark belongs to no movement or school, and can not be characterized by the use of any medium in particular. His practice remains one of the most unique, unequalled, and hugely influential of the past decades.

He is most famous for his “building-cuts”, actions that translate in the cutting-up of façades, walls, and floors of derelict buildings. Because of the ephemeral and often unauthorized nature of these interventions, Matta-Clark started using photography and film as means of documentation. His social and political convictions, and subsequent involvement in artistic communities, also led to various projects such as the opening of a restaurant in the middle of the then neglected district of Soho (Food), the purchase at auction of fractions of unusable urban land in New York (Fake Estate), and other various visionary urban proposals (with the New York based Anarchitecture group).

The three texts commissioned for this book include Professor Thomas Crow’s long survey, that will become a major reference on the work of the artist; Judith Russi Kirshner’s essay on the concept of community and how it translates in his work; and Christian Kravagna’s analysis of the role of photography and film in Matta-Clark’s work.

Apart from these essays, the book also contains a rich “Documents” section, composed of interviews, articles and various other historical and hard-to-find documents.

Thomas Crow is Director of the Getty Research Institute at the Getty Center, Los Angeles, and Professor of Art History at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. His latest book, The Intelligence of Art, addresses the critical and historical understanding of art objects.

Corrine Diserens is a freelance curator and artistic adviser for the Association Carta Blanca Editions in Marseille, France.

Judith Russi Kirshner is Professor of Art History and Dean of the College of Architecture and the Arts at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Christian Kravagna is an art historian and critic based in Vienna.

“Stunning… Impressive monograph.”—Art Review

“Whether in Paris beside the Pompidou, in an office block in Antwerp or a wharf building by the Hudson River in New York, what [Matta-Clark] did is irrecoverable – a matter now of images (photographs and films), contemporary accounts and current reminiscences. And in this respect, the Phaidon book is very valuable. In the main essay, Thomas Crow gives a lucid, informative account of Matta-Clark’s art and times, but it is the documents towards the end of the book – reprints of articles, recollections by surviving colleagues and friends, and above all several interviews with Matta-Clark himself, in which he is very articulate about his motives and tactics – that really bring his enterprise alive.”—Architects’ Journal

“Crow’s text… while vividly reanimating the freewheeling 1970s… mostly works to brush off the brick-dust of history that has covered [Matta-Clark]… The book has an air of completeness not only because it is a start-to-finish record of Matta-Clark’s work… but also because it is lavishly illustrated, with each major project recorded in sketches, plans and documentary photographs. The ever-expanding world of Matta-Clark studies needs such a book, as does anyone interested in the social possibilities of sculpture. In an echo of the artists’ peeling back the skin of buildings, the spine of this hardback book has been cut away, revealing the binding beneath: a labour of love, satisfied with a job well done, allowing itself a moment of levity.”—Modern Painters

“Crow is very good at weaving the biographical details of Matta-Clark’s life into the analysis of his art… Given Matta-Clark’s inspirational nature, the filmic narrative of his life and the visual impact of his work, I defy any writer to make a boring book out of him. And Crow, who is an insightful art historian, also tells a good story. Then there the generous illustrations. The pictures of Matta-Clark at work among friends and accomplices convey an infectious spirit of creative fun.”—Justin McGuirk, Icon

“Gordon’s work spotlights and pinpoints one of the crucial ideas of modern art – actually doing and redoing an absurd idea. This might sound strange, but he was both a Minimalist and a Surrealist.”—John Baldessari, artist

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