A work split across platforms

Beyond the significant photograph of the split house, Splitting exists in various parallel formats working on individual terms while also complementing each other. Foremost, the work consists of a short film showing Matta-Clark cutting the small dwelling house in Englewood in two halves with the help from one assistant [Fig. 2.4].33 _{Besides, Splitting is a number of photographic internal views of the split house} [Fig. 2.5], and sectional elevations of internal spaces that reveal the insides of cut floors and walls [Fig. 2.6]. Then there is photo collage work reconstructing the interior in gravity-defying juxtapositions of its chopped up parts based on the sectional/elevational evidence [Fig. 2.7]. There is the book entitled

Splitting [Fig. 2.8], which is an artist book narrating the process and stages of the cut in text and images

while also containing a fold-out page showing the interior of the house reassembled room by room as a collaged doll’s house [Fig. 2.9]. At the limit of the work, the pages of a black notebook are cut to follow the outline of this dollhouse image, so that every corner of the projected sectional view is marked with cuts of varying depth into the pages of the book – only one cut goes through them all.34 The only remaining pieces from the original house are the four top corners that Matta-Clark cut out as a final gesture. These corners continue to be exhibited in art galleries and museums in the form of an installation named Splitting: Four Corners [Fig. 2.10].35 _{There might have been more, there might still be} more – at first, there was a building in the suburbs of New Jersey, a man with a chainsaw and a couple of cameras and helpers.

According to a press release for an exhibition named after the corner cut outs – “Splitting: Four Corners” – which took place in Holly Solomon Gallery, New York (1990) (MoMA: Artist file – miscellaneous uncatalogued material), it was supposedly in April/May 1974 that six weeks were spent on site, cutting and filming the work. In September the same year, the house in Englewood was

32

The catalogues of particular relevance to the present study are from the following exhibitions: “Gordon Matta-Clark” at IVAM Centre Julio González, Valencia (1992/93); “Reorganizing Structure by Drawing through It: Zeichnung bei Gordon Matta-Clark” at Generali Foundation, Vienna (1997); “Transmission: The Art of Matta and Gordon Matta-Clark” at San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego (2006); and “Gordon Matta-Clark: 'You Are the Measure’” at Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC (2007/08).

33

The film Splitting is a Super 8mm silent film now transferred to video and DVD. Its duration is 10:50 minutes and it is filmed in both b/w and colour. The narrative of the film is divided into segments with text boards announcing the events as they unfold. Curiously, the first of the boards states that the work is carried out in 1973 [Fig. 2.4.A]. There is, however, no indication found elsewhere in the literature or archive material that Splitting should have been produced a year earlier than the date normally ascribed to the work.

34

The notebook is held by CCA (PHCON2002:0016:022). Gordon Matta-Clark did a number of these so-called cut drawings in relation to ongoing projects and as independent works. These would often comply with the given book format or be cut in larger scale into a stack of cardboard sheets.

35

I have seen Splitting: Four Corners exhibited as part of the show “Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown, Gordon Matta-Clark: Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970s” at the Barbican, London (2011).

demolished, yet for a couple of months invited guests were able to visit the house. Holly Solomon, Matta-Clark’s gallerist, arranged a bus trip to the house for a group of SoHo friends, and a number of accounts from the encounters with the split house survive. The artist Susan Rothenberg recalls:

The first piece I responded to 100 percent was the cut house piece. He was cutting the thing in half the way I was cutting the horse in half. His, though, was a superpower cut. It destroyed the whole concept of a house, and it was an exposé of what a building was. The house itself was very boring, a dumb suburban house in New Jersey. From outside the cut had a real formal look. The insides were like a chasm opening up the earth at your feet. Realising that a house is home, shelter, safety – knowing what a house is – is one thing. Being in that house made you feel like you were entering another state.

Schizophrenia, the earth's fragility, and full of wonder. It was so subtle at every level – the way a crack fell through a door moulding, through the stairs. (Simon 1988: 87)

Besides from published accounts of friends and colleagues’ experiences of Matta-Clark’s work and projects, numerous of the artist’s own scribblings and notes survives. These, of which CCA holds a collection consisting of short written pieces in the form of essays and word plays, reveal an ongoing preoccupation with spatial questions related to a number of projects (PHCON2002.0016.001). Among the small cards with proverbs and humorous one-liners related to art, architecture and politics, one note from 1972 reads, “3 yrs. after an architectural degree I sometimes continue to work with the facts & fabric of building space…” (PHCON2002.0016.001.005). Another, from 1973, states, “PASSING THROUGH AND AROUND / TO COMPLETE A SPACE… / NOT BUILDING BUT

[RESTORING] / CHANGING THE DIRECTIONS OF A LOAD / WORKING WITH A VIEW AN EYE BETWEEN THE SURFACES” (PHCON2002.0016.001.023). A third, also dated 1973, states, “The ways people live the spaces they have beyond between and without walls putting to waist the most presumptuous building plans” (PHCON2002.0016.001.017). While Matta-Clark’s notes and writing in general reveal a preoccupation with a wide range of topics, the thesis appreciates the clues to a critical thinking on architecture that frequently inform statements such as the ones above.

In the Splitting book, divided into four chapters, the cutting of the house unfolds progressively [Fig. 2.8]. At first, the text reads, “322 HUMPHREY STREET / AS IT WAS LEFT / ABANDONED” followed by four external photographic elevations of the house, as Matta-Clark first encountered it. In addition, two collaged photos show a messy interior space with the former residents’ abandoned belongings scattered around. Then the text reads, “CUTTING THE HOUSE IN HALF / TWO PARALLEL LINES / ONE INCH APART / PASSED THROUGH ALL / STRUCTURAL SURFACES” followed by the four external photographic elevations of the cut house. Two photo collages are assembled to show the cut as it has been drawn across the floors, walls and ceilings of the downstairs living room and an upstairs

bedroom. Then Matta-Clark writes, “BEVELING DOWN / FORTY LINEAL FEET / OF CINDER BLOCKS / TO SET HALF THE BUILDING / BACK ON ITS FOUNDATIONS” followed by the four external elevations of the house now split open. A photo collage assembles the cut as it traverses the interior of the house from the bottom of the staircase to the roof. This otherwise vertically orientated collage, made from four images, is tilted sideways to suggest that the upper half of the cut house is hanging in air without

support [Fig. 2.11]. Lastly, “REMOVING INTACT / ALL FOUR CORNERS / AT THE EAVES” shows the four external elevations of the cleaved house with the four top corners missing. Two mirroring images of these are seen from inside the house and the book concludes, “DEMOLISHED AND REMOVED / SEPTEMBER 1974.” The foldout poster of the split house, montaged into a dollhouse-type cross section, conclusively breaks the format of the booklet.