Gordon Matta-Clark: Cities on Screens: Film Works
Screening & Conversation | Sept. 17-18, 2014, 7-9:30pm
This is a past event.
A two-night screening event features films by artist Gordon Matta-Clark that explore the artist’s relationship to the city and the built environment.
About the Screening & Conversation.
Gordon Matta-Clark is considered one of the most influential American artists of the last four decades. Trained as an architect, Matta-Clark’s practice was anchored around a radical investigation of space and architecture and the complexities of urban life and the structures that mold and sustain it. Informed by both Minimalism and Surrealism, Matta-Clark used buildings as a site and a medium—physically carving out sections of them to create temporary spatial compositions that went on to exist only in his photographs, collages, and films. Until his untimely death in 1978, at the age of 35, Matta-Clark drew attention to the multitude of places that bodies construct and inhabit in urban centers—to their materiality, their sociability, and even their mortality. In an oeuvre that is beautiful and raw, Matta-Clark exposes both the violent and transcendental qualities embedded in the gestures of building—leaving behind for us a haunting architectural imagination where the lives of cities continue to evolve.
The two-evening screening event at TMR will focus on Matta-Clark’s relationship to the city—as a material, as a site for intervention, and as an image. Encompassing a total of seven films and a series of interjecting conversations between TMR Director and Chief Curator Cesar Garcia and Gordon Marta Clark Estate Co-Director Jessamyn Fiore, Cities on Screens: Film Works aims to reflect on the rapidly changing nature of Los Angeles itself, particularly its Downtown. At a time when multiple acts of building are enacted upon this formerly desolate terrain and promises of regeneration fuel both speculative new inhabitance and dislocation, Matta-Clark’s works provide a moment of meditation on the past and future of Los Angeles.
Screening Schedule
Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2014
Fire Child (1971), 9:47min, color, silent, Super 8mm film on video.
Fresh Kill (1972), 12:56min, color, sound, 16mm film on video.
Day’s End (1975), 23:10min, color, silent, Super 8mm film on video.
Thursday, Sept. 18, 2014
Substrait (Underground Daillies) (1976), 30min, b&w and color, sound, 16mm film on video.
Splitting (1974), 10:50min, b&w and color, silent, Super 8mm film on video.
Conical Intersect (1975), 18:40min, color, silent, 16mm film on video.
City Slivers (1976), 15min, color, silent, Super 8mm film on video.
About the Artist.
Gordon Matta-Clark (US, 1943-1978) is widely considered one of the most influential American artists of the last five decades. A key contributor to the activity and growth of the NY art world from the late 1960’s until his untimely death in 1978, Matta-Clark introduced new and radical modes of physically exploring and subverting urban architecture. Matta-Clark’s work has been the subject of various solo exhibitions at institutions around the world including the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Kunsthalle Basel, Le Nouveau Musée, Villeurbanne, France; Brooklyn Museum; the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; the Generali Foundaion, Vienna; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; MOCA, Los Angeles; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile; Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo; and the Museo de Arte de Lima, amongst others. His work is found in the collections of some of the most important museums around the world.
About the Participants.
Jessamyn Fiore is a New York-based curator and writer as well the co-director of the Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark. She received a Masters in contemporary art theory, practice, and philosophy from The National College of Art and Design, Dublin. Curated exhibitions include 112 Greene Street: The Early Years (1970-1974), David Zwirner, New York, NY (2011); Gordon Matta-Clark, David Zwirner, New York, NY(2013); and II Machines: Clive Murphy & Trevor Tweeton, Knockdown Center, Mespeth, Queens, NY (2015).
Cesar Garcia is TMR’s Director and Chief Curator.
Press
Sept. 15, 2014 | 24 Of Our Favorite Events in Los Angeles This Week | LAist
Sept. 16, 2014 | Art RX LA | Hyperallergic
Sept. 17, 2014 | The Agenda: This Week in Los Angeles | Art in America
Credits
Gordon Matta Clark: Cities on Screens: Filmworks is organized by TMR and co-curated by Cesar Garcia, TMR Director and Chief Curator, and Jessamyn Fiore, Co-Director of the Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark.
TMR's program is made possible with the support of its Board of Directors and Big Mistake Patron Group.
Special thanks to the Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark; David Zwirner, New York/London; and Electronic Arts Intermix.
Photo Credit: The Mistake Room. Copyright 2014. The Mistake Room Inc.