Bessa, Antonio Sergio and Jessamyn Fiore — Gordon Matta-Clark: Anarchitect

Bronx, N.Y. / New Haven, The Bronx Museum of Arts / In Association with Yale University Press, 2017. Hardcover. Black and b&w-photo illustrated DJ with white and grey lettering; orange cloth over boards with black lettering; xi, 169 pp.; richly illustrated. "This revealing book looks at the groundbreaking work of Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978), whose socially conscious practice blurred the boundaries between contemporary art and architecture. After completing a degree in architecture at Cornell University, Matta-Clark returned to his home city of New York, where he initiated a series of site-specific works in derelict areas of the South Bronx. The borough's many abandoned buildings, the result of economic decline and middle-class flight, served as Matta-Clark's raw material. His series 'Bronx Floors' dissected these structures, performing an anatomical study of ther ravaged urban landscape. Moving from New York to Paris with 'Conical Interserct', a piece that became emblematic of artistic protest, Matta-Clark applied this same method to a pair of seventeenth-century row houses slatted for demolition as a result of the Centre Pompidou's construction. This compelling volume grounds Matta-Clark's practice against the framework of architectural and urban history, stressing his pioneering activist-inspired approach, as well as his contribution to the nascent fields of social practice and relational aesthetics." -- Dust Jacket. VG. Minimally marked ex-lib just a sticker on the spine and inside rear cover.