Books HOME LOCAL L.A. Now Politics Crime Education O.C. Westside Neighborhoods Environment Obituaries Findlocal U.S. Politics Now Top of the Ticket Science & Environment Obituaries Religion WORLD Afghanistan & Pakistan Africa Asia Europe Iran Iraq Latin America Mexico Under Siege Middle East Business Money & Co. Technology Personal Finance Small Business Company Town Jobs Real Estate Autos SPORTS Lakers Clippers Dodgers Angels NFL Ducks/Kings USC UCLA Soccer High Schools Scores/Stats ENTERTAINMENT Movies Television Music Celebrity Arts & Culture Company Town Calendar The Envelope Findlocal Health Booster Shots Fitness & Nutrition Medicine Behavior Healthcare Reform Hospitals Living Home Food Image Books Parenting Findlocal Magazine Reader Photos Summer Guide Travel California Hawaii Mexico Las Vegas Europe Travel & Deal Blog Destinations Opinion Editorials Op-Ed Letters Opinion L.A. Deals Save: Deals Go: Travel Eat: Food Wear: Apparel Live: Everyday Needs Play: Electronics Drive More Mobile Site Subscribe / Manage Account Print Ads Place an Ad LAT Store Jobs Cars Real Estate Rentals More Classifieds 
Weekly Ad#inTheNews {min-height:20px;} Advanced Search Advanced Search X include all of these words: include any of these words: include this exact phrase: exclude: Select a date range this week past 30 days past 3 months past year Create a custom date range From: To: Jacket CopyBooks, authors and all things bookish« Previous |Jacket Copy HomeThe Reading Life: Gordon Matta-Clark's 'Conical Intersect'July 15, 2011 | 5:55pm
What was he up to? That's the question at the center of any consideration of Gordon Matta-Clark, an architecture student-turned-installation artist who died of cancer in 1978, when he was just 35.
Matta-Clark doesn't have the name recognition of contemporaries such as Robert Smithson, whose work his superficially resembles, or Laurie Anderson, who was part of an "informal collective of downtown artists he brought together under the banner of anarchitecture," writes Bruce Jenkins in his monograph "Gordon Matta-Clark: Conical Intersect."
Nonetheless, Jenkins suggests, his influence is significant -- if not for the public, who remain mostly ignorant of his large-scale, space-specific installations, then for other artists who share his experimentalism and his belief in art as a social force.
For Matta-Clark, Jenkins argues, this pair of interlocking imperatives came together most vividly in "Conical Intersect," created for the ninth Biennale de Paris in 1975. The idea is simple, but with implications -- which could be said of all of Matta-Clark's work. A block from the Centre Georges Pompidou, then under construction, the artist cut into two 16th century townhouses that had been scheduled for demolition, creating a vast circular opening "contracting from the exterior towards the interior of a building (from four metres to two metres) in the manner of a spyglass."
The experimental aspects are obvious; the social, perhaps, not so much. But, notes Jenkins, part of the point was to comment on what the Pompidou project was doing to its neighborhood, while also offering a new way of looking at (and thinking about) two buildings that would be destroyed. As Matta-Clark noted in a 1977 interview:
The first thing one notices is that violence has been done. Then the violence turns into visual order and, hopefully, then to a sense of heightened awareness.... You see that light enters places it otherwise couldn't. Angles and depths can be perceived where they should have been hidden. Spaces are available to move through that were previously inaccessible.... My hope is that the dynamism of the action can be seen as an alternative vocabulary with which to question the static, inert building environment.For his Paris project, Jenkins suggests, Matta-Clark was influenced by the son et lumiere tradition, with its sense of architecture as spectacle. But equally important was his desire to comment on "the street-drama of the construction and demolition," his sense of urban renewal as a source of flattening, of forgetting, in which the old (people, buildings, communities) are consistently uprooted or left behind. A native New Yorker, he has seen this in Manhattan in the 1950s and '60s, when Robert Moses sought to remake the city in his own image.
In the early 1970s, Matta-Clark began to express a counter-sensibility in his artwork, most notably "Pig Roast," in which he "roasted a whole pig in the derelict Lower East Side environs under the [Brooklyn Bridge] and served it up to the resident homeless population and his fellow artists," and "Fresh Air Cart," a public art collaboration in which oxygen was offered to "air-starved passersby."
There's a bit of the put-on to such projects, or perhaps more accurately of the spectacle -- again, son et lumiere. But what Matta-Clark was really exploring was the hidden intersection between the conceptual and the everyday. How does art shake us out of our complacency? How does it help us reframe the world? For Matta-Clark, the issue was never permanence -- "Conical Intersect" existed for only a few weeks before it was demolished -- but rather the challenge of teaching a new way to see.
-- David L. Ulin
Twitter: @latimesbooksFacebook: latimesbooksMore in: architecture, art, criticism, David Ulin, Reading Life, The Reading Life.entry {border-bottom:0px; padding-bottom:0px;}#sponsored1 {margin-bottom:15px;}
PreviousMore from Jacket CopyComments () | Archives (0) var countNum = 0;if (countNum == 0) {jQuery("#archiveShow").css({'display' : 'none', 'visibility' : 'hidden'});jQuery("#commentsDivider").css({'display' : 'none', 'visibility' : 'hidden'});};jQuery('#fbShow').click(function () {jQuery('#commentsArchive').css({'display' : 'none', 'visibility' : 'hidden'});jQuery('#fbComments').css({'display' : 'block', 'visibility' : 'visible'}); });jQuery('#archiveShow').click(function () {jQuery('#fbComments').css({'display' : 'none', 'visibility' : 'hidden'});jQuery('#commentsArchive').css({'display' : 'block', 'visibility' : 'visible'}); });/*jQuery('#fbShow').css('color' , 'white');jQuery('#archiveShow').css('color' , '#666666');*/
L.A. Times on Facebook
AdvertisementIn Case You Missed It...The LatestMost ViewedMost Emailed Explore Bestsellers Lists
Browse: Dates Titles Authors Search: Find a title Find an author
Recent NewsThe Reading Life: Gordon Matta-Clark's 'Conical Intersect' | July 15, 2011, 5:55 pm »The confusing dissolution of Borders bookstores | July 15, 2011, 10:29 am »Mondays will be restored to L.A. Public Library schedules | July 14, 2011, 2:22 pm »Jane Austen's $1.6-million manuscript | July 14, 2011, 11:36 am »Jaycee Dugard's 'A Stolen Life': Our review, Part 2 | July 14, 2011, 9:10 am »
Categoriesacademiaadvertisingamazonanimalsappsarchitectureartaudioaudiobooksauthorsbeabenjamin buttonbestsellersbiographybook clubsbook festivalsbook reviewsbook trailersbooksbookstoresbusinesscaliforniacarolyn kelloggcelebritycharitychildren's literatureclassical literaturecomicscoverscraftscrimecriticismcurrent affairsdavid ulindeborah netburndenis johnsondenverdesigndoing gooddonationsdrmdrugsearthquakesebookseconomicseducationenergyenvironmentereadersessayseventsfantasyfashionfictionfilmfood and drinkgamesgardeninggooglegraphic novelhealthhistorical nonfictionhistoryholidayhorrorhow tohumorindiainternationalinterviewjon thurberkindlela eventsla times bestsellersla times book prizela times festival of booksla times reviewlanguagelawlibraryliesl bradnerliteraturelos angelesmagazinesmargaret wapplermediamemoirmiddle eastmoney walksmusicmysterynew reviewnextnick owcharnobody movenonfictionnovelnovellaoff the shelfonlineparentingphilosophyphoto booksplayspoetrypoliticspomo monthpop cultureprizespublishingradioreadingreading liferearviewrelationshipsreligionrock your books offromanceschool readingsciencescience fictionself-helpsexshelvesshoppingshort storysportssummer readingsusan carpentersusan salter reynoldssxswitechnologytelevisionthe reading lifetheaterthrillertranslationtravelurbanismvideovideo gamesweb extraweb/techweblogswordswritingya
ArchivesJuly 2011June 2011May 2011April 2011March 2011February 2011January 2011December 2010November 2010October 2010September 2010August 2010July 2010June 2010May 2010April 2010March 2010February 2010January 2010December 2009November 2009October 2009September 2009August 2009July 2009June 2009May 2009April 2009March 2009February 2009January 2009December 2008November 2008October 2008September 2008August 2008July 2008June 2008May 2008April 2008March 2008February 2008January 2008December 2007November 2007October 2007September 2007August 2007July 2007June 2007May 2007
Stay connected:
About the ReportersCarolyn Kellogg
Orli Low
Nick Owchar
Susan Salter Reynolds
David L. Ulin
More from The Times24 FramesAfterwordAll The RageAwards TrackerBabylon & BeyondBig PictureBooster ShotsCompany TownCulture MonsterDaily DishDodgers BlogFabulous ForumFrameworkGreenspaceHero ComplexHomicide ReportJacket CopyL.A. at HomeL.A. NowL.A. Times on TumblrL.A. UnleashedLa PlazaLakersMinistry of GossipMoney & Co.Opinion L.A.PolitiCalPolitics NowPop & HissReaders' RepresentativeShow TrackerTechnologyTop of the TicketTravel News & DealsVarsity Times Insider
Corrections Horoscopes Media Kit About Us Contact Us Site Map
Coastline Pilot | Daily Pilot |Huntington Beach Independent | Valley Sun | Burbank Leader | News Press |KTLA |Hoy | LA, Los Angeles Times Magazine | ZAP2itBaltimore Sun |Chicago Tribune |Daily Press |Hartford Courant |LA Times |Orlando Sentinel |Sun Sentinel |The Morning Call
Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Los Angeles Times, 202 West 1st Street, Los Angeles, California, 90012 | Copyright 2011
A Tribune Web siteView the original article here
This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.
No comments:
Post a Comment