Window Blow-Out

JPG\236\matta-clark_GF0000313.00_001.jpg
© Generali Foundation Collection—Permanent Loan to the Museum der Moderne Salzburg © Bildrecht

Gordon Matta-Clark

Window Blow-Out, 1976

8 black and white photographs, vintage prints, baryta paper 26.8 x 34 cm each, framed 84.5 x 182.2 cm

GF0000313.00.0-1996

Artwork text

For the exhibition Idea as Model at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York, Matta-Clark created one of his most renowned works. Most of the contributions to the show were not from artists but from architects (e. g., Richard Meier and Michael Graves), who built sophisticated architectural models to demonstrate their concepts. Referring to these two architects, Matta-Clark who studied architecture at Cornell University, declared, “These are the guys I studied with at Cornell, these were my teachers. I hate what they stand for.” The night before the opening Gordon Matta-Clark discarded his original plan to cut a seminar room into two-by-two-foot squares and stack the pieces in the middle of the show. Instead, he borrowed an air gun from Dennis Oppenheim, blew out all the windows of the exhibition hall, and placed a photo in each casement showing a new housing project in the South Bronx, whose windows had been smashed by residents. The curator of the exhibition, Andrew MacNair, saw Matta-Clark’s piece as a comment on modern architecture and architects, on good taste and builders of utopian projects in slums like the South Bronx. He spoke of a very aggressive and violent act. Actually he had given Matta-Clark permission to blow out the gallery windows but only those that were already broken. Matta-Clark blew out all of them. Peter Eisenman, the then director of the institute, saw a similarity with the “Reichskristallnacht” in Germany. The windows in the exhibition were all replaced that same night, prior to the opening, and very few people had the opportunity to see this work. (Sabine Breitwieser)

Lending history
2015 Berkeley, CA, USA, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) 2014 Luxembourg, LU, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (MUDAM) 2014 Graz, AT, Kunsthaus am Landesmuseum Joanneum 2013 Washington DC, USA, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden 2011 Mexico City, MX, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes 2011 London, GB, Barbican Art Gallery 2010 Warschau, POL, Museum für zeitgen. Kunst 2010 Madrid, ES, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (MNCARS) 2010 Santiago de Chile, CL, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA) 2010 Lima, PER, Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI) 2010 Rio de Janeiro, BR, Museu Paco Imperial (AAPI) 2010 Sao Paolo, BR, Museu de Arte Moderna de SP (MNM) 2009 Barcelona, ES, MACBA 2009 Vaduz, LIE, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein 2008 Siena, IT, Centro Arte Cont. St. Maria della Scala 2008 Chicago, IL, USA, Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) 2008 Gwangju, KOR, Gwangju Biennale South Korea 2007 Los Angeles, CA, USA, MOCA, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA 2007 New York, NY, USA, The Withney Museum 2005 Zagreb, CRO, Galerija Klovicevi Dvori 2005 Rotterdam, NL, Witte de With 2.OG 2005 Munich, DE, Haus der Kunst 2003 Glasgow, GB, Center for Contemporary Art (CCA) 1999 New, York, NY, USA, The Bronx Museum