Gray Area Grand Theater: SF Cinematheque presents: Constructions / Destructions / Instructions: The Films of Gordon Matta-Clark
SF Cinematheque presents six films by Gordon Matta-Clark from 1971–1976, showcasing his radical “building cuts” and experimental interventions that use film to explore boundaries and space.
Program introduced by Dylan Adamson & Jessamyn Fiore
Gordon Matta-Clark, the artist, urban explorer and “anarchitect” most famous for the “building cuts” he performed on various decomposing structures in the 1970s, made eighteen short films before his untimely death from cancer in 1978. Aside from enabling “walk throughs” of the buildings Matta-Clark worked with (all of which have since been demolished), film provides the ideal venue with which to experience Matta-Clark’s singular artistry: the power of the cut to create strange new juxtapositions, the epistemological faculty of an opening that introduces light to new planes; metaphorical connections between Matta-Clark’s work and the cinematic apparatus abound. This program collects six of his films completed between 1971 and 1976, documenting three building cuts, one site-specific intervention, one formal experiment and one car crash. In all his work, Matta-Clark sought to expose the thinness of the boundaries that divide people, mediums, spaces and ideas. With sledgehammer, chainsaw and his own two feet, he punched through these walls with an urgency that has been increasingly felt in the decades since his passing, cutting new holes for light to pour in. (Dylan Adamson & Jessamyn Fiore, program curators) Full screening details here.
Screening
Fire Child (1971) by Gordon Matta-Clark; 16mm, 10 minutes.
Fresh Kill (1972) by Gordon Matta-Clark; 16mm, 13 minutes.
Bingo/Ninths (1974) by Gordon Matta-Clark; 16mm, 10 minutes.
Splitting (1974) by Gordon Matta-Clark; 16mm, 11 minutes.
Conical Intersect (1975) by Gordon Matta-Clark; 16mm, 19 minutes.
City Slivers (1976) by Gordon Matta-Clark; 16mm, 15 minutes.
TRT: 78 minutes.
Related publication: City Slivers And Fresh Kills: The Films Of Gordon Matta-Clark (Steven Jenkins, ed), published 2004 by San Francisco Cinematheque.