Gordon Matta-Clark
Splitting
New York City, USA: 98 Greene Street Loft Press, 1974
[32] pp., 18 x 28.2 cm., staple-bound
Edition size unknown
In the early seventies, New York City was economically depressed and crime-ridden, and properties could be purchased for very little. Gordon Matta-Clark had bought a few slivers of unusable land for between twenty-five and seventy-dollars, at auction. He had hoped to develop his idea of "anarchitecture" (a conflation of the words anarchy and architecture) but zoning irregularities prevented him from completing his plans.
He was scouting for a new site when gallerist Holly Solomon offered him a house she owned in Englewood, New Jersey. The building at 322 Humphrey Street was slated for demolition and became the site of the artist’s first monumental work.
The intervention was documented in photographs, a film and this bookwork. The film consists of “intentionally artless footage” showing the artist and assistants making two parallel cuts down the centre of the house. The home is bisected, creating an ephemeral display of light.
“It was always exciting working with Gordon,” said his assistant Manfred Hecht. “There was always a good chance of getting killed.”
Matta-Clark invited members of the art community to travel by bus to the location, to witness the work firsthand, before it was levelled three months later, to make way for new apartments.
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