Pistol Experience, 1973

Gordon Matta-Clark   Famous Artists

Gordon Matta-Clark (New York, 1943-1978), son of the Chilean surrealist painter Roberto Matta, known for his "cuttings", transformations of buildings by cutting or extracting fragments, and considered one of the most important conceptual artists of the second half of the 20th century.

He studied architecture at Ithaca University in New York State and literature in Paris, but decided to be an artist rather than an architect, yet Gordon Matta-Clark has been described as "the only true deconstructivist architect".

Matta-Clark, at the age of 35, died of pancreatic cancer on 27 August 1978.

After his death, major retrospective exhibitions have been organised at institutions around the world, including the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Chile) (Santiago, Chile), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago); Badischer Kunstverein (Karlsruhe, Germany); IVAM Centro Julio González (Valencia, Spain); the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), Gordon Matta-Clark and the Museo de Arte de Lima MALI among hundreds of other venues in the West.

Gordon Matta-Clark's archives are housed at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in the city of Montreal. Gordon Matta-Clark's legacy is represented by David Zwirner in New York.