Gordon Matta-Clark

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Gordon Matta-Clark (June 22, 1943 to August 27, 1978) was an American artist who is best known for his site-specific artworks he made in the 1970s. He studied architecture at Cornell University, but did not practice as a conventional architect. He also spent a year studying French literature at the Sorbonne in Paris. He was in Paris during the times of the student strikes in 1968. It was at this time that he became aware of the French deconstructionist philosophers. He was also quite taken with Guy Debord and the Situationists. These cultural and political radicals developed the concept of detournement, or "the reuse of pre-existing artistic elements in a new ensemble." Such concepts would later inform all of his work. He is most famous for works that radically altered existing structures. His building cuts (in which, for example, a house is cut in half vertically) alter the perception of the building and its surrounding environment.

Matta-Clark used a number of media to document his work, including film, video, and photography. His work includes performance and recycling pieces, space and texture works, and his building cuts.

In 1971 Matta-Clark founded Food, in SoHo, New York, which was a restaurant managed and staffed by artists. The first of its kind in SoHo, Food became well known among artists and was a central meeting-place for groups such as the Philip Glass Ensemble, Mabou Mines, and the dancers of Grand Union.

Both of Matta-Clark's parents were artists: the Chilean Surrealist painter Roberto Matta and Anne Clark.

[edit] Influences on Contemporary Artists

Matta-Clark's cuts inspired, among other contemporary artists, Brian Jungen, a part-Swiss, part-Dane-zaa native from British Columbia, Canada. Jungen recycles goods from a globalized consumer market and transforms them into objects that evoke a specific cultural tradition, as in his series 'Prototypes of New Understanding.'

Matta-Clark's excavation pieces and fascination for the underground also inspired Belgian performance artist Danny Devos in his piece 'Diggin' for Gordon', in which Devos digs a hole at a secret location. The piece is visible to the audience only via a webcam.

Matta-Clark's public interventions such as his "cuts" can been seen as the precursor to Street installation. American artist Cristopher Cichocki [1] produces unsanctioned public works within sites of urban abandonment and credits Matta-Clark as one of his major influences.