Powerpoints for high school photo history lessons

1. Gordon Matta-Clark
1943-1978
Jennifer Wells

2. “By un-doing a building there are
many aspects of the social
condition against which I am
gesturing: to open a state of
enclosure which had been
preconditioned not only by
physical necessity but by the
industry that profligates suburban
and urban boxes as a context for
insuring a passive, isolated
consumer—a virtually captive
audience.” Gordon Matta-
Clark, 1977

3. Bronx Floor: Floor Hole Bronx Floors: Threshole
1972 Gelatin Silver Prints
“It was an activity that attempted to transform place into a
state of mind by opening walls where doors never were or
looking beneath the carpet to clear away the floor.”

4. Reality Properties: Fake Estates "Maspeth
Onion" (Block 2406, Lot 148), 1973
Gelatin silver print and documents
Reality Properties: Fake Estates, "Jamaica
Curb," Block 10142, Lot 15, 1978
Collaged gelatin silver prints, deed, and three maps
Reality Positions: Fake Estates, "Staten
Island," Block 1224, Lot 12, 1978
Collaged gelatin silver prints, deed, and documents

5. “When I bought those properties at the New
York City Auction the description of them that
always excited me the most was ‘inaccessible.’
They were a group of fifteen micro-parcels of
land. In Queens, left-over properties from an
architects drawing. One or two of the prize ones
were a foot strip down somebody’s driveway
and a square foot of sidewalk. And the others
were kerbstones and gutterspace. What I
basically wanted to do was to designate spaces
that wouldn’t be seen and certainly not
occupied. Buying them was my own take on the
strangeness of the existing property
demarcation lines. Property is so all-pervasive/
Everyone’s notion of ownership is determined
by the use factor.

6. A W-Hole House: Roof Top
Atrium
1973
Gelatin silver prints

7. in Genoa, Italy for the 2002 solo exhibition A W-Hole House
A recreation of wall cuts from at David Zwirner, New York
a room of A W-Hole House
1973

8. Splitting
1974
Collaged gelatin silver prints
Framed: 41 x 31 inches (104.1 x 78.7 cm)

9. “So while this small not so happy house got cut and shifted
Documentation of Splitting out of place, the action took only minutes of the building’s
history. Yet by my view all those pent-up lives respecting
1974 the tiny cramped rooms were suddenly flooded with direct
sunlight.”

10. at the 2008 exhibition Cut: Revealing the Section at the San
Installation view of Splitting: Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Four Corners
1974

11. Day's End (Pier 52)
1975
Chromogenic print
Silver dye bleach print (Cibachrome)
Silver dye bleach print (Cibachrome)

12. “During the afternoon the sun shines
through a cat’s-eye-like ‘rose window’
in the west wall. At first a silver and
then a strongly defined shape of light
continues to wander into the wharf
until the whole pier is fully illuminated
at dusk. Below the rear ‘wall-hole’ is
another larger quarter circular cut
opening the floor of the south-west
corner to a turbulent view of the
Hudson water. The water and sun
move constantly in the pier throughout
the day in what I see as an indoor park.

13. Conical Intersect
1975
Silver dye bleach print (Cibachrome)
Collaged gelatin silver prints

14. Documentation of Conical Intersect
1975
in Paris

15. Office Baroque
1977
Silver dye bleach prints (Cibachrome)

16. in Antwerp, Belgium
Documentation of Office
Baroque 1977

17. Building fragment: parquet wood flooring, drywall, and
Office Baroque wood; and silver dye bleach print
1977

18. Circus Circus (Carribean Orange)
1977 1978
Silver dye bleach prints (Cibachrome)

19. at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Documentation of Circus
(Carribean Orange)
1978

20. Sous-Sols de Paris:
Bones and Bottles
Sous-Sols de Paris:
Les Halles Sous-Sols de
Paris: Basilica
1977
Chromogenic prints

21. “In fact, the next area that interests me
is an expedition into the underground:
a search for the forgotten spaces left
buried under the city either as historical
reserve or as surviving reminders of lost
projects and fantasies, such as the
famed Phantom Railroad. This activity
would include mapping and breaking or
digging into these lost foundations:
working back into society from
beneath. Although the original idea
involved possible subversive arts, I am
now more interested in the act of
search and discovery. This activity
should bring art out of the gallery and
into sewers.”

22. Questions?