Gordon Matta-Clark

by Crawford, Jane; Crow, Thomas; Diserens, Corinne

• ISBN13: 9780714839165
• ISBN10: 0714839167
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-05-01
• Publisher: Phaidon Press

Summary

Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978) is one of the great heroes of late twentieth-century art, a cult figure as much in the contemporary art world as on the architecture scene, whose work is independent from any movement or school. This book is the first and definitive monograph on the artist, who died at the age of thirty-five. Born in New York and trained in architecture, Gordon Matta-Clark is most famous for his slicing through fa+ades, walls and floors of derelict buildings. This 'deconstructing' gesture, provocative and extreme, turns architecture into astonishing sculptures, where the mass of the building is entwined with the light and air that penetrate it. Matta-Clark's interventions are always grounded in social or political convictions. Some of his projects include opening a restaurant (Food, 1971) in the then-neglected district of SoHo in New York, purchasing at auction fractions of unusable urban land in New York (Reality Properties: Fake Estates, 1973), dispensing oxygen to passersby in the streets of New York from a self-made cart (Fresh Air Cart, 1972), and other visionary urban projects that he conceived as a founding member of the New York-based Anarchitecture group. His practice remains one of the most unique, unequalled, and hugely influential of the past decades.

Author Biography

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.

Table of Contents

Preface

Thomas Crow: Gordon Matta-Clark

Legend and Myth

Alchemy and Anthropology 1962-1971

More Songs about Buildings and Food

Away from the Richness of the Earth, Away from the Dew of Heaven

Epilogue

"It's Nothing Worth Documenting if it's Not Difficult to Get": On the Documentary Nature of Photography and Film in the Work of Gordon Matta-Clark

The Idea of Community in the Work of Gordon Matta-Clark

Documents

Chronology

List of Exhibitions

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.