Gordon Matta-Clark: Art, Architecture and the Attack on Modernism

(Paperback)

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Known for - and even overshadowed by - his brutal and spectacular building cuts, Gordon Matta-Clark's oeuvre is unique in the history of American art. He worked in the 1970s on the boarders between art and architecture and his diverse practice is often understood as an outright rejection of the tenets of high modernism. Stephen Walker argues instead for the artist's ambivalent relationship with the architectural heritage he is often claimed to disavow, thus making this the first book to extrapolate Matta-Clark's thinking beyond its immediate context.Walker considers the broad range of Matta-Clark's ephemeral practice, from montage to actual interventions and from performance art and installation to drawing, film and video. Bringing to the fore the consistent themes and issues explored through this broad range of media, and in particular the complex notion of the 'discreet violation', he reveals the continued relevance of Matta-Clark's artistic and theoretical oeuvre to the reception of artistic and architectural work today.

Reviews

'Stephen Walker draws upon the thought of Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari to develop a new kind of account of Gordon Matta-Clark's work.' - Mark Dorrian, Reader in Architectural Design and Theory, University of Edinburgh. 'In this moment of modernism's reappraisal, Stephen Walker builds a necessary bridge between the oft-divided worlds of architecture and art.' - Mary Jane Jacob, Executive Director of Exhibitions and Professor [of Sculpture], The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 'Rarely has an artist found a commentator whose writings evince the philosophical and historical acuity of this study. Walker announces the importance of Matta-Clark for a new generation.' - Andrew Benjamin, Professor of Critical Theory and Philosophical Aesthetics, Monash University.

Author Bio

Stephen Walker is lecturer in Architecture at the University of Sheffield. His research explores areas around the peripheries of architectural practice. His current project is on Helen Chadwick's Thinking Between Art and Architecture.