City Slivers & Fresh Kills: Gordon Matta-Clark

Funded in part by New American Art Union; Rapaport Development Company; Gray Purcell, General Contractor; and Holst Architecture

Apr. 6 + 7 - 7:30 pm

120 NE Russell Street

Work Stills:

About This Screening

Organized by the San Francisco Cinematheque, City Slivers and Fresh Kills brings together ten of Gordon Matta-Clark's rarely screened film works from 1971-1977. Over the course of his short career (he died in 1978, at the age of 34), Matta-Clark used his background and training as an architect to branch out into deconstructivist explorations of space through performance, sculpture, film, and photography. Primarily known for his large cutting projects, wherein he would physically cut up abandoned buildings--splitting them into pieces or carving large sectionals out of the interior, much of Matta-Clark's work was temporary, leaving behind only films, photographs, and drawings as testament to their existence. Included in this two-night survey are Matta-Clark's performances, building deconstructions, and documents of his work process. These films vary greatly in their investigations of urban space; Clockshower, for instance, features Matta-Clark climbing to the top of the Clocktower in Manhattan to wash and shave himself while Conical Intersect documents the cutting of two houses for the 1975 Paris Biennial.