Mark Wigley

Cutting Matta-Clark

The Anarchitecture Investigation

The Anarchitecture group show at the fabled 112 Greene Street gallery – an artistic epicenter of New York’s downtown scene in the 1970s – in March 1974 has been the subject of an enduring discussion, despite a complete lack of documentation about it. Anarchitecture, a collective challenging all conventional understandings of architecture, has become a foundational myth, but one that remains to be properly understood. Cutting Matta-Clark investigates the group through extensive interviews with the protagonists and a dossier of all the available evidence.

Stemming from a series of meetings, organized by Gordon Matta-Clark and reflecting his long-standing interest in architecture, the Anarchitecture exhibition was conceived as an anonymous group statement in photographs about the intersection of art and building. But did it actually happen? It exists only through oblique archival traces and the memories of the participants.

This publication features unpublished archival evidence; The dossier is subjected to ever deeper forensic analysis – cutting into both the concepts and the cuts to see what the elusive, mysterious, seductive, yet viral word Anarchitecture offers us today.

The Anarchitecture group show at the fabled 112 Greene Street gallery – an artistic epicenter of New York’s downtown scene in the 1970s – in March 1974 has been the subject of an enduring discussion, despite a complete lack of documentation about it. Anarchitecture, a collective challenging all conventional understandings of architecture, has become a foundational myth, but one that remains to be properly understood. Cutting Matta-Clark investigates the group through extensive interviews with the protagonists and a dossier of all the available evidence.

Stemming from a series of meetings, organized by Gordon Matta-Clark and reflecting his long-standing interest in architecture, the Anarchitecture exhibition was conceived as an anonymous group statement in photographs about the intersection of art and building. But did it actually happen? It exists only through oblique archival traces and the memories of the participants.

This publication features unpublished archival evidence; The dossier is subjected to ever deeper forensic analysis – cutting into both the concepts and the cuts to see what the elusive, mysterious, seductive, yet viral word Anarchitecture offers us today.


“While following Wigley's prose is for die-hard Matta-Clark fans, the hundreds of illustrations make for a revealing look at an artist who still holds our attention, even though he's now been dead longer than he lived.
Archidose


Author(s): Mark Wigley

In collaboration with the Canadian Centre for Architecture and the Columbia University GSAPP

With contributions by Tina Girouard, Jene Highstein, Dickie Landry, Jeffrey Lew, Richard Nonas, Bernard Kirschenbaum, Susan Weil Kirschenbaum

Design: Integral Lars Müller

16,5 × 24 cm, 6 ½ × 9 ½ in

528 pages, 813 illustrations

paperback

2018, 978-3-03778-427-3, English
CHF 42.00
Out of stock

Mark Wigley

Mark Wigley (*1956) is a Professor and Dean Emeritus at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. As an architectural theorist and historian, Wigley explores the intersection of architecture, art, philosophy, culture, and technology. His publications include “Buckminster Fuller Inc.: Architecture in the Age of Radio” (2016), “Cutting Matta-Clark: The Anarchitecture Investigation” (2018) and “Are We Human: Notes on an Archaeology of Design” that he published together with Beatriz Colomina in association with their curation of the 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial. Wigley was born in New Zealand, where trained as an architect, and lives in New York.

Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley

Are We Human?

CHF 20.00
4th Edition, 2021