GORDON MATTA-CLARK
2016-12-19Gordon Matta-Clark’s (1943–1978) training as an architect exerted a crucial influence on his work: in the late 1960s he defied the conventions of his discipline while examining its relationship with sculpture. He began to produce his first architectural performances in interior spaces, before going on to expand his practice and reflection on “structure” and to consider each place as an object. Matta-Clark’s building cuts allowed him to rethink the notion of space, the function of the artist operating in the public sphere, and ultimately to create ephemeral works without constructing or adding any elements.
“I feel my work intimately with the process as a form of theater in which the working activity and the structural changes to and within the buiding are the performance. I also include a free interpretation of movement as gesture, both metaphoric, sculptural, and social into my sense of theater, with only the most incidental audience – an ongoing act for the passer-by just as the construction site provides a stage for busy pedestrians in transit.”
Opposite – Graffiti Photoglyph (detail), 1973
Exhibition runs through to January 19th, 2017
Marian Goodman Gallery
79 rue du temple
75003 Paris
France
