Splitting, Gordon Matta-Clark

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.