Splitting, cutting, writing, drawing, eating… Gordon Matta-Clark
14 Oct 2017 - 07 Jan 2018
Gordon Matta-Clark
Conical Intersect, 1975
© 2017 Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Conical Intersect, 1975
© 2017 Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
SPLITTING, CUTTING, WRITING, DRAWING, EATING... GORDON MATTA-CLARK
14 October 2017 – 7 January 2018
Curated by Delfim Sardo e João Ribas
Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978) was one of the most influential New York artists of his generation, despite his career being cut short by his sudden and premature death.
After training as an architect at Cornell University, Matta-Clark developed an intense body of work, resulting in an inseparable combination of interventions in the public space and on buildings, performative works, drawing and films. The ephemeral nature of his public interventions, which have only reached us through the documentation that the artist produced, reflects his awareness of the present time, which was always the guiding thread behind his artistic practice.
This exhibition, produced in partnership with the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, presents part of the collection on deposit at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (resulting from an important donation made by the artist's widow, Jane Crawford), which constitutes the largest collection of documents related to the work of Matta-Clark. Based on a series of verbs expressing the activities that were central to his practice (splitting, cutting, writing, drawing, eating), the exhibition looks at some of the texts, notebooks, drawings, films and photographs produced by the artist, seeking to unravel part of the complex web of his legacy, in which art, architecture and an omnivorous pleasure in life are intertwined.
14 October 2017 – 7 January 2018
Curated by Delfim Sardo e João Ribas
Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978) was one of the most influential New York artists of his generation, despite his career being cut short by his sudden and premature death.
After training as an architect at Cornell University, Matta-Clark developed an intense body of work, resulting in an inseparable combination of interventions in the public space and on buildings, performative works, drawing and films. The ephemeral nature of his public interventions, which have only reached us through the documentation that the artist produced, reflects his awareness of the present time, which was always the guiding thread behind his artistic practice.
This exhibition, produced in partnership with the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, presents part of the collection on deposit at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (resulting from an important donation made by the artist's widow, Jane Crawford), which constitutes the largest collection of documents related to the work of Matta-Clark. Based on a series of verbs expressing the activities that were central to his practice (splitting, cutting, writing, drawing, eating), the exhibition looks at some of the texts, notebooks, drawings, films and photographs produced by the artist, seeking to unravel part of the complex web of his legacy, in which art, architecture and an omnivorous pleasure in life are intertwined.