This book compiles six interviews with American artist Gordon Matta-Clark (1943–1978) conducted during the most productive years of his artistic career, from 1974—shortly after he completed his famous work Splitting, which involved cutting a condemned suburban house in half—to the year of his untimely death in 1978 at the age of 35. As an artist of few words who preferred action over theoretical statements, these interviews serve as valuable documents for gaining insight into the motivations behind his work.
Gordon Matta-Clark (1943–1978) was the son of Chilean artist Roberto Matta and American artist Anne Clark. After studying French literature at the Sorbonne and architecture at Cornell University, Matta-Clark began in 1971 to create cuts or extractions from the floor slabs and facades of buildings in New York, Genoa, Milan, Paris, Antwerp, and Chicago, documenting the process through photography, video, and film. These interventions, mostly carried out in marginalized areas, required immense physical effort and were often executed in difficult-to-access locations, frequently illegally. He died of cancer at age 35, one year after the suicide of his twin brother, Batán.
