Gordon Matta-Clark : Anarchitect

A revealing book looking at the ground-breaking work of the architect, Gordon Matta-Clark

After completing a degree in architecture at Cornell University, Matta-Clark returned to his home city of New York. There he employed the term "anarchitecture," combining "anarchy" and "architecture," to describe the site-specific works he initially realised in the South Bronx.

The borough's many abandoned buildings, the result of economic decline and middle-class flight, served as Matta-Clark's raw material. His series Cuts dissected these structures, performing an anatomical study of the ravaged urban landscape. Moving from New York to Paris with Conical Intersect, a piece that became emblematic of artistic protest, Matta-Clark applied this same method to a pair of 17th-century row houses slated for demolition as a result of the Centre Pompidou's construction.

This compelling volume accompanies an exhibition at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn and the Jeu de Paume in Paris.

Details

• Author: Antonio Sergio Bessa, director of curatorial and education programs at the Bronx Museum of the Arts
• Hardcover: 184 pages | 90 colour illustrations
• Date published: November 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN: 978-0300230437
• Dimensions: 25.4 x 19.1 cm