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M+, Hong Kong, © Gordon Matta-Clark/EAI/ARS
On View
Mediatheque
Gordon Matta-Clark 戈登．馬塔-克拉克
Conical Intersect 圓錐相交
1975
For the Biennale de Paris in 1975, Gordon Matta-Clark and his collaborators painstakingly and spectacularly cut a cone-shaped void through a historic apartment building, which had been slated for demolition as part of the construction of the Centre Pompidou. A lasting record of a temporary work, this film intersperses scenes of the ‘deconstruction’ with shots of pedestrians and drivers in the street below watching the progress. As the work nears completion, the emerging view through successive layers of the building heightens the sense of formerly private spaces being exposed to public view. In a fitting close, the film ends by showing the building’s demolition, underscoring how processes of architecture and urban planning (epitomised here by the under-construction Centre Pompidou, looming in the background throughout the film) can destroy while they create.
Matta-Clark studied architecture, though he never practiced as a conventional architect. Instead, he forged his career in the context of the vibrant conceptual and performance art scenes of 1970s New York. Documentation through film, photography, maps, administrative documents, and other kinds of writing were key complements to his large-scale, sculptural interventions in buildings and urban spaces. His practice of what he called ‘an architecture’ (a portmanteau of ‘anarchy’ and ‘architecture’) proved deeply influential for artists, architects, and activists who sought to resist the orderly, strictly regulated spaces and social structures of modern life.
Matta-Clark studied architecture, though he never practiced as a conventional architect. Instead, he forged his career in the context of the vibrant conceptual and performance art scenes of 1970s New York. Documentation through film, photography, maps, administrative documents, and other kinds of writing were key complements to his large-scale, sculptural interventions in buildings and urban spaces. His practice of what he called ‘an architecture’ (a portmanteau of ‘anarchy’ and ‘architecture’) proved deeply influential for artists, architects, and activists who sought to resist the orderly, strictly regulated spaces and social structures of modern life.
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