Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-78) died at only 35 of pancreatic cancer and has since become a cult figure of late 20th-century art. Trained in architecture at Cornell, he went on to question the field's conventions in vivid projects--performance and recycling pieces, space and texture works and word games--some of which excised holes into existing buildings or assembled deeds to New York City alleys and curbs. The artist used a variety of media to document his work, including film, video and photography. His work and words, while sophisticated enough to make him an artist's artist, and colossal and outgoing enough to draw public attention and affection, were always also grounded in social or political convictions. In the early 1970s, Matta-Clark developed the idea of anarchitecture, which encompassed his interest in voids, gaps and left-over spaces. Gordon Matta-Clark: Experience Becomes the Object collects five essays and ten individual interviews with various friends and family members of Matta-Clark's. Together, they outline a biographical profile and offer an analysis of the historical period in which the artist developed his short but successful career. New, never-before-published material and photographs as well as an exclusive link to the documentary Crosswords: Matta-Clark's Friends by Matias Cardone are also included.

An essential reference that provides new understanding of the thought processes of one of the most radical artists of the late twentieth century. Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978) has never been an easy artist to categorize or to explain. Although trained as an architect, he has been described as a sculptor, a photographer, an organizer of performances, and a writer of manifestos, but he is best known for un-building abandoned structures. In the brief span of his career, from 1968 to his early death in 1978, he created an oeuvre that has made him an enduring cult figure. In 2002, when Gordon Matta-Clark's widow, Jane Crawford, put his archive on deposit at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, it revealed a new voice in the ongoing discussion of artist/architect Matta-Clark's work: his own. Gwendolyn Owens and Philip Ursprung's careful selection and ordering of letters, interviews, statements, and the now-famous art cards from the CCA as well as other sources deepens our understanding of one of the most original thinkers of his generation. Gordon Matta-Clark: An Archival Sourcebook creates a multidimensional portrait that provides an opportunity for readers to explore and enjoy the complexity and contradiction that was Gordon Matta-Clark.