Gordon Matta-Clark, Splitting, And The Unmade House
Gordon Matta-Clark, Splitting, and the Unmade House
Matta-Clark understood the emotional impact buildings have on people. In a 1976 notebook entry, he expressed his goal to “transform a location into a mental state.” This link between a home and its residents was reflected in the letters he received after the reveal of Splitting.
Although the home was viewed as a private space, families were also urged to participate in neighborhood networks that valued conformity. These connections were presented as key to the "good life." Matta-Clark examined the motivations behind the creation and promotion of this ideal, questioning whose interests it truly served.
Instead of viewing architecture as a solution to housing issues—having witnessed the effects of post-war developments first-hand—Matta-Clark used architecture as a medium for sculpture, bringing the cuts of buildings to life in his photographs. The act of transforming abandoned buildings and documenting the process was central to his practice, as was the social commentary expressed through the boldness of these transformative actions.
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Colette Cronin
My work centers on the notion of what is a home. It is an exploration of that which is most emotive, where is it that we belong, and how can we, in this modern state of upheaval, find our safe place. The paintings query if it is the presence of people that turn a house into a home, and what it says about our community when there are houses left empty. My work centres on the notion of what is a home. It is an exploration of that which is most emotive, where is it that we belong and how can we, in the modern state of upheaval, find our safe place. The paintings query if it is the presence of people that make a house a home, and what is says about our community when building are left empty. I utilise a clean, hard edge technique. Currently I am incorporating three dimensional elements into my work, physically building the scene behind stretched canvas and treating it then as a traditional painting. It is an experimental look at the spaces we occupy.
Kitchen Living, Acrylic on canvas, 2023, 20cm x 20cm.
Wardrobe, Acrylic on canvas, 2023, 20cm x 20cm.
Rachel Whiteread
Rachel Whiteread House 1993
House was only ever intended to be a temporary monument, and its ultimate disappearance will be an act of completion. That this stack of sealed rooms, perched one upon another should itself be turned into a memory seems fitting. It is an idea which, for a protracted moment, enters the world of things, and then is gone. ‘House’, she said, ‘is to do with memory and ultimately it will become just that.’ 'House makes a point about the smallness and fragility of the spaces we actually live in, worry about, decorate....all those things that are part of life.’ An essentially hidden, private space has, by an act of inversion, become a physical, public expression. What, finally, has been exposed is an empty setting, a place where people once led a life of intimacies, grew up, grew old and died. And, one might add, fucked, rowed, worried, slept, ate, shat, fought, laughed and lied. No one looks out of the windows any more, no one puts out the milk bottles on the stoop; no one shouts ‘Kevin comein you tea’s ready’ or returns home late from the pub and fumbles with the keys to the lock: no one, not even Rachel, lives here any more. House is a dead space.
Rachel Whiteread, Study for House, 1992
Gordon Matta-Clark. Bingo. 1974
Curator, Laura Hoptman: Gordon Matta-Clark was trained as an architect. His work took on a lot of different guises at the very beginning of his career, at the beginning of the 1960s, and it wasn't till his first cutting experiment in 1971 where he really took on what he called “anarchitecture.” And that is the idea of a kind of literal deconstruction of architecture to see how it was made in conjunction with or in opposition to the human beings who would inhabit it. Narrator: Matta-Clark made Bingo in 1974 by cutting into the facade of a house in Niagara Falls, New York that was slated to be demolished. Laura Hoptman: This was a period of time when a lot of buildings had been condemned or were rotting. So by making an artwork out of these abandoned houses and abandoned industrial sites, he was drawing attention to them. Narrator: He cut through the walls in frame of the house, creating nine equal sized rectangles that resembled the grid of a Bingo game card. This sculpture is made from three of those pieces. Laura Hoptman: So that's why you see some of the interior. And when you see the stairway, you're seeing both the front side and the back side of the facade. Narrator: The artist and a team of assistants worked 12 hours a day for 10 days to cut and remove the facade. Laura Hoptman: And as soon as he and his crew left, the bulldozers came and bulldozed the house.
Gordon Matta-Clark. Bingo. 1974, Building fragments: painted wood, metal, plaster, and glass, three sections, Overall 69" x 25' 7" x 10" (175.3 x 779.8 x 25.4 cm).
JoAnne Lobotsky
The work is based on a fragment of an idea and then developed intuitively and organically during the process. My work is autobiographical in that I try to express the feeling I have of the time and place I grew up in. Things being reused and repurposed as well as things being jerry-rigged were typical on a small mid-century farm. Imperfection, abjectness and roughness coinciding with beauty and a kind of humble elegance are my main goals. I use mostly scraps of fabric that have a history of use by other people and there is sometimes damage from wear or stains that I embrace. Other types of materials are used that suggest fur, bark or vegetation. I feel that my approach to this work which involves imperfection and roughness is also in some way a rebellion against our class system and economic entitlement and strives to become accepted on its own terms within its own limitations. My work has roots in the Arte Povera movement in the commonplace and worn materials I use which present a challenge to established notions of value and propriety.
What Remains, 2019, Canvas, acrylic, fabric, thread, wood, feather, bleach, paper, clothes pin, antique nails on canvas, 23 X 34.5"
Where I'm From, 2019, Canvas, fabric, embroidery, cheesecloth, micaceous iron oxide, feathers, faux fur, tatting, antique buttons. Some areas are lightly stuffed. 23 X 58 X .5"
Niklas Roy
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/02/niklas-roy-little-piece-privacy/
Berlin-based artist Niklas Roy isn’t just concerned about his privacy and protection online. To stop passersby from peeping into his workshop, he strung up a white, lace curtain stretching only partially across his window. Titled “My Little Piece of Privacy,” the ironic project from 2010 was established to offer seclusion to the artist, while recording those who walked past his space. Each outside movement triggers a motor to position the thin fabric in front of the person attempting to look inside.
Marc Yankus - The Space Between
Empty Lot in The West Village, from the series The Space Between, 2014
Three Blue Windows, from the series The Space Between, 2013.
Side of Building, from the series The Space Between, 2013.
Building Split, from the series The Space Between, 2013.
In this series, select historical buildings are portrayed in altered cityscapes and invented spaces that evoke the experience of memory, imagination and dream states playing out in a magical place. Strangely familiar, the buildings are elevated in a fictional composition that appears to tell a story or reflect a past history, but their power resides more in the realm of sensation than explicit narrative. The buildings seem to emerge from the landscape, shaped by the space around them or, in some cases, by the space between them. These surrealistic alterations of New York’s architectural skyline are a cross between imagination and documentation. As portraits, they are meant to reconstitute awareness and preserve the buildings through adjustments in reality and perception.
I’ve always been drawn to the majestic details and materials of classical historical buildings, many of which are hidden from view, tucked behind new architecture, or simply overlooked. Often discovered from rooftops or accessible from private views, I feel compelled to capture the slivers of the old, recreate the buildings to make them whole, and restructure them in place and history.
Enrica Casentini
Open Doors
The door is a symbol of border, of passage from a dimension to another one, from inside to outside.It can be open or closed.From the door to the house, an intimate space of identification, from house to city, extensive space of passage or stay where peoples, races and religions live together.Sometimes it's more difficult to open own doors. In this work I wanted to represent the individual and his will to open. Houses, like individuals, are many and different from each other. All doors are open to signify the choice of every individual, they rapesent the human will to open to exchange. For this reason the title of my work is "the open doors", it's my strong opinion that doors and borders can became place of exchange not of division.
Leticia Lampert - (de) construction
(de) construction
The city grows spontaneously. Disordered. Up and down, wherever there is space. Every style is mixed together. There is no development plan for the cities in Brazil, so they become a huge architectonic collage. It is after this perception of the city that this work was created. As a play, collages are made from disconnected pieces of houses and buildings in order to create other ones. These new buildings are strange but, even though, they seem very familiar, once it is like that our perception works. The series consists of 19 collages
(de)constructions #4, Photography and collage, 82 x 130 cm.
(de)constructions #17, Photography and collage, 67 x 100 cm.
