Gordon Matta-Clark: Conical Intersect

Gordon Matta-Clark's Conical Intersect (1975) was a torqued, spiraling"cut" into two derelict seventeenth-century Paris buildings adjacent to the constructionsite of the controversial Centre Pompidou. With this landmark work of "anarchtecture,"Matta-Clark not only opened up these venerable residences to light and air, he also began a dialogueabout the nature of urban development and the public role of art. Considered three and a halfdecades later, Conical Intersect reveals the multivalent nature of the artist's practice and hisprescient focus on sustainability and creative reuse of the built environment. Conical Intersect andthe two buildings were demolished as part of a large-scale urban renovation of the historic marketdistrict of Les Halles; today we can know the work only from drawings, photographs, and a shortSuper 8 film. In this illustrated study, Bruce Jenkins examines Matta-Clark's"non-u-ment," looking closely at the artist's proposals, working process, various forms ofdocumentation, and the dialogue begun by Matta-Clark's decision to transform two abandoned buildings"into an act of communication."

Bruce Jenkins is Professor of Film, Video, and New Media at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is the editor of On the Camera Arts and Consecutive Matters: The Writings of Hollis Frampton (MIT Press, 2009).