GORDON MATTA CLARK: GENUA DATUM CUT 73

GORDON MATTA CLARK 
"Genua Datum Cut 73"
1973. Genova, Italy
Col·lecció MACBA

In November 1973 Gordon Matta-Clark was invited by curator Paolo Minetti of Galleriaforma to exhibit in Genoa, Italy. Minetti offered him the possibility of working in a house, a simple one-story building that housed offices and drafting rooms for engineers and which was about to be demolished. Known for his “cutting” interventions on buildings that created a dialogue between art and architecture, Matta-Clark removed a square from the centre of the building’s pyramidal, terra-cotta tiled roof with a crane (Roof Top Atrium). The angular beams of light that fell into the house were then used as guidelines for slicing the interior walls (Datum Cuts).

“What fascinated me was the interior central plan. The act of cutting through from one space to another produces a certain complexity involving depth perception. Aspects of stratification probably interest me more than the unexpected views which are generated by the removals – not the surface, but the thin edge, the severed surface that reveals the autobiographical process of its making,” explained Matta-Clark about his project. 1 A W-Hole House was exhibited at Galleriaforma with sections of the wall, the roof of the building, photographs, and other works which the artist brought from New York.

http://www.cca.qc.ca/en/collection/7-gordon-matta-clark-a-w-hole-house