Project 2: Place
ARTIST RESEARCH

S. Natasha Mercado
Scheer
ART308
2/28/2014
Artist Research/Site Specific: Gordon Matta-Clark

            Gordon Matta-Clark was best known for his works in which he dissected existing buildings, slicing into and opening them up, using the simplest means and converting them into amazing and disorientating sculptures. These varied in scale from the cuts he made in abandoned tenements to create a series of works called “Bronx Floors: Threshole” and his iconic rearrangement of a suburban house in New Jersey known as “Splitting” (Image 1), among others. Matta-Clark’s architectural work concentrates on the idea of creation within deconstructed architecture and questions the social aspect of these specific places.

            Most of the buildings he worked with were building sites that were going to eventually be demolished. He mostly worked through “cuts and extractions on floors, walls and other structures, somehow showing the possibilities of deconstructing reality by transforming our consciousness and the way we perceive our world” (dpr-barcelona). He practiced the concept of “anarchitecture” in order to challenge the idea of deconstruction against construction and how deconstructing something is related to the topic of creating. In his work “Conical Intersect” 1975 (Image 2) Matta-Clark focuses on the concept of creating art out of a deconstructed building. Gordon and some of his helpers take away part of the wall of the last two floors by cutting out a large circle. He criticizes not only the placement and structure of the building itself but also the meaning behind the architecture which was given by society.

            Over a period of three months in 1974, he made two parallel vertical cuts straight through the middle of a tow-story suburban house in New Jersey, calling this piece “Splitting”. He removed the material left between the cuts as well as some of the foundation blocks on which the house stood “so that one half slightly tilted away from the other, creating a wedge-shaped aperture between them” (Eynde). This deconstruction of the home does not only refer to the actual physical deconstruction of the architecture but it also attacks the disintegration and trauma within the American home in the suburbs. Matta-Clark’s “Conical Intersect” (1975) piece was a “spiraling ‘cut’ into two derelict Pompidou” (Jenkins). With this landmark work of ‘anarchitecture’, Matta-Clark opened up these residences to the natural light and breeze. He created art by deconstructing a circle inside a building that was already undergoing deconstruction where he began a dialogue about the nature of urban development. This act of ‘communication’ is also evident in his “Splitting” piece.

            A time period when the suburbs were becoming quite popular among the American society, Matta-Clark literally split a suburban home in two. The identical house structures created homes that were believed to be the perfect place for the typical American family. What people did not see is that these new homes drifted families farther and farther apart. Parents worked farther away, there was barely any form of entertainment in the neighborhood, and children started to slowly become bored, anxious, and depressed. Matta-Clark demonstrated this feeling of stress and trauma by making the split in half of the home symbolize the separating of the American family. As one of the sides of the house is gently lowered, a split appears down its center, and a space is created for a sharp beam of light. The light here creates a great comparison of the lively energy from nature against the soon to be demolished architecture.

             From deconstruction to construction, Matta-Clark deconstructs in order to create. Whether it is to create a new space within a deconstructed site or to question societal issues, Matta-Clark’s work has created a new way of looking at deconstruction and the meaning within ‘anarchitecture’.

Image 1

http://camilayelarte.blogspot.com/2011/06/gordon-matta-clark-el-alquimista-urbano.html

Splitting
1974
Typical American house, New Jersey

Image 2

https://www.archetypes.com/article/sfmoma-gordon-matta-clark-conical-intersect

Conical Intersect
1975
Seventeenth-century Paris buildings

Works Cited

Eynde, Maarten Vanden. “The Invisible Line”. Genetologic Research. Word Press. 2008. Web.     March 2nd, 2014

Jenkins, Bruce. “Gordon Matta-Clark: Conical Intersect”. Afterall. Exhibition Histories.   Artwork. Web. March 2nd, 2014

Krause, April. “Experiencing Unbilding and In-Between Spaces: Analysing Works by Gordon      Matta-Clark, Rachel Whiteread and Michael Arad”. University of Tasmania. November   2012. Print. March 4th, 2014

Ouroussoff, Nicolai. “Timely Lessons From a Rebel, Who Often Created by Destroying”.            Architecture Review. Art & Design. The New York Times. March 3, 2007. Web. March 3rd, 2014 

S. Natasha Mercado
Art 308
3/11/14
Artist Research 4: Maya Lin

Maya Lin creates her work based on the context of the sites she is given to work with. Her work reacts and acts along with its surrounding environment to the point where it becomes of greater meaning once constructed specifically within it. She creates pieces that respond to their surroundings, the environment, and the type of public in that environment. Before even visiting the space, Lin focuses on the “verbal” meaning behind the site and then creates a piece that will add to or change the conceptual meaning of the site as a whole. For most of her pieces she would first sit down and research on the historical background, dimensions, and the meaning behind that specific setting. Then, Maya Lin would try to incorporate or expand this setting by creating an architectural piece or a sculpture. An example of her work is the famous Vietnam Veterans Memorial (1982). While sketching out a plan for this memorial Lin thought about not only the depth of the land and its structure but also about the surrounding buildings and architecture around it such as the Lincoln Monument and Washington Memorial. These architectural sites had deep meanings ingrained in them already so it was important for Lin to find a way to connect this artwork to its surroundings. She also spent time thinking about how to make the structure of the piece easy, clean, and simple to understand and interact with.

In her piece called Private Residence (1998), a private residence in Manhattan, New York, Lin created a more convenient home structure in response to the tight and busy surrounding city life. She reconstructed parts of the house in order to make them serve different functions by “folding like origami”; a room that “needed to be flexible. It had to feel intimate and comfortable for one person, yet had to ‘expand’ to accommodate his entire family on those occasions when they were all in town” (Studio).  Maya Lin rearranged the meaning of the family within the home by working from the surrounding city, by working from the outside inwards, a similar process she seems to follow throughout the years.

            Maya Lin’s art, particularly her Vietnam Veterans Memorial, is very site related because it was created based on the history of the site and context and based on the surrounding elements. Lin’s idea was to create a symbolic representation of the death and loss of the soldiers during the war by “cutting a wound” in the give land. Because of the historical context given by her piece the place ended up becoming more political and historical than before because the meaning of the Vietnam War (the grieve, loss, and policies made during the war) was added and connected to the already existing physical context. Lin worked to connect the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument to her memorial by understanding the physical context and place, in this case D.C., the landscape, and by making her piece easy for everyone to interact with and possibly relate to. It is context within context that adds meaning to the whole space as a whole, a way of easy dialogue between all the different contexts (monuments, memorials, politics) within a larger context –the Capital of the United States- where all laws are made and all military action is considered.

            Going back to Lin’s Private Residence piece, Lin wanted to “create a living space that was responsive to our changed way of living…I envisioned a home that could fold in on itself, like origami or a transformer toy, changing shape or function depending upon how it was used” (Ross). Again, Lin tries to create a work that is responsive to its surroundings, in this case to the busy and crowded city life of New York by transforming the everyday home into something more convenient and practical. “The kitchen island is a cube that opens up to reveal hidden chairs – and the dining room table and chairs fold together to become a buffet side bar. The shower in an upper level bathroom folds away when not in use; an entire wall cabinet pivots and slides up against a wall, transforming two bedrooms into one larger suite” (Studio). Lin creates the typical small Manhattan home into a convenient, quiet and warm, getaway for the typical family who want to enjoy family dinners and get away from the city life. She takes the surrounding context into consideration as well as the historical background, for example, how domestic architecture has evolved from a very traditional idea of family, work, and home to a more personal independent life style. Lin incorporates both aspects into one as a response to the setting of the New York life. Again, through this work and many of her other works we see a repetitive process from thinking about the verbal and historical context within the site she is to work in to creating a piece that will react or respond to that context by expanding the meaning of the work as a whole.

Image 1

http://www.mayalin.com/

Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Washington, D.C., 1982

Image 2

http://www.mayalin.com/

Private Residence
New York, NY, 1998

Works Cited
Marshall, Heather. “Maya Lin: Vietnam Veterans Memorial”. Vietnam War. 2002. Web. March
11, 2014.

Private Residence. Architecture. Maya Lin Studio. New York, NY. 1998. Web. March 11, 2014.

Ross, Alex. “Maya Lin”. Selected Works of Maya Lin. Stanford University. 2002. Web. March
11, 2014.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Memorials. Maya Lin Studio. Washigton, DC. 1982. Web. March
11, 2014.