Splitting, Gordon Matta-Clark

Artwork Overview

Gordon Matta-Clark, Splitting
Gordon Matta-Clark, Splitting
Gordon Matta-Clark
Splitting
1974–1975
Splitting, 1974–1975
Where object was made: United States
Material/technique: collage; rubber cement; gelatin silver print
Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 512 x 768 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 20 3/16 x 30 1/4 in
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 41 x 31 x 1 1/2 in
Weight (Weight): 18 lbs
Credit line: Museum purchase: Elmer F. Pierson Fund, Terry and Sam Evans Fund
Accession number: 1994.0008
Not on display
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Label texts

Exhibition Label: "Contemporary Photographs: Rethinking the Genres," Oct-2000, Rachel Epp Buller Matta-Clark, like other young artists of the 1970s, linked art and politics to address issues of rising property prices, poor urban planning, and unemployment. In 1968, he began cutting shapes out of abandoned and soon-to-demolished buildings as a demonstration of what he called “anarchitecture,” a term he used to signify a combination of anarchy and architecture. Matta-Clark used photography to record these site-specific works. "Splitting" documents a New Jersey house that the artist cut in half over the course of three months. He manipulates the photographs to form a collage of an illogical space, each section connected by rays of sunlight. Inside the house, Matta-Clark has removed any trace of human presence. His collage, almost like a film still, captures a silent moment prior to the building's ultimate destruction. Exhibition Label: "Art for Kansas: Building the Collection, 1988-1998 (Recent Acquisitions)," Nov-1998, John Pultz and Susan Earle Matta-Clark, like other young artists of the 1970s, linked art and politics to address issues of rising property prices, poor urban planning, and unemployment. He arrived in New York City in 1968 from architecture school at Cornell University, and began cutting shapes out of abandoned and soon-to-demolished buildings as a demonstration of what he called “anarchitecture,” a term he used to signify a combination of anarchy and architecture. Matta-Clark used photography to record these site-specific works. "Splitting" documents a New Jersey house that the artist cut in half over the course of three months. The collage creates an illogical space connected by rays of sunlight from both a window and the cut. He manipulates both the building and the images of the building.

Resources

Audio

Didactic – Art Minute
Didactic – Art Minute
Episode 172. I’m David Cateforis with another Art Minute from the Spencer Museum of Art. The American artist Gordon Matta-Clark made his reputation in the 1970s by using chainsaws to cut through the walls and floors of abandoned buildings. To document these ephemeral works, Matta-Clark made films and photographs such as Splitting, a three-photograph collage in the Spencer collection completed in 1975. Picturing the interior of a suburban New Jersey house that Matta-Clark literally cut in half, the twisting composition forces us to critically consider the whole as well as the sum of its parts. From a distance the three black-and-white photographs seem to link together as a view into one space. However, closer examination reveals that the space is not continuous, but a constructed panorama of three levels of the home offered simultaneously. Matta-Clark’s use of collage recalls the work of the early 20th-century Cubists, who assembled multiple views into a single composition. It also conveys the disorienting spatial experience one might have had in actually navigating Matta-Clark’s deconstructed house. With thanks to Abby Flores for her text, from the Spencer Museum of Art, I’m David Cateforis.