SAN DIEGO MUSEUM of ART | Press Release

GROUNDBREAKING EXHIBITION PRESENTS FIRST EVER EXAMINATION OF ART OF SURREALIST ROBERTO MATTA AND CONCEPTUALIST GORDON MATTA-CLARK

Transmission: The Art of Matta and Gordon Matta-Clark
August 19–November 12, 2006

SAN DIEGO—A new exhibition organized by the San Diego Museum of Art presents the very first comprehensive examination of the relationship between the work of renowned surrealist Roberto Matta and his son, conceptual artist Gordon Matta-Clark. Titled Transmission: The Art of Matta and Gordon Matta-Clark, the exhibition explores how Matta-Clark’s exposure to artistic circles of his father’s generation influenced the direction that his art would take and how that played a role in the evolution of 1970s conceptual art.

Representing the very first time that works by Matta and Gordon Matta-Clark have been shown together in an exhibition context, Transmission features approximately 84 artworks, including paintings, sculpture, drawings, and photographs, to suggest a wholly new perspective on the larger role these artists played in the development of 20th-century art. The exhibition is curated by Betti-Sue Hertz, SDMA’s curator of contemporary art, and is accompanied by a scholarly catalogue.

“My colleagues and I are excited to present such a groundbreaking project to this community. This exhibition promises to contribute significant new knowledge about key moments in the development of 20th-century art,” says the San Diego Museum of Art’s executive director, Derrick Cartwright. “Matta and Matta-Clark were key artists for their respective generations. Transmission represents a truly unique opportunity to compare the artworks of these two seminal figures side-by-side on our gallery walls. Visitors will come away from the experience challenged and thinking more deeply about modern art.”

Given the fact that both Matta and Gordon Matta-Clark were formally trained as architects who strongly relied upon concepts of architectural space in their mature artwork, Transmission seeks to answer some central questions regarding the historical relationship between father and son. Among the questions explored in depth are: How did Matta and his circle influence Matta-Clark? What aspects of Surrealism were adopted by Matta-Clark and his circle? What are the parallels and differences between Matta’s representation of a subjective world and Matta-Clark’s intervention into public space? How does each artist create a similar sense of architectural space in their work?

The exhibition will investigate these questions through a presentation of sculpture, paintings, and works on paper by Matta, and a large-scale building fragment, sculpture, photographs, cut-paper works, drawings, and films by Matta-Clark. Along with the artwork will be ephemera such as notebooks, letters, manuscripts, magazines, and catalogues, as well as films and photographs.

Transmission will be divided into five sections, each exploring a different facet of the artists’ life and work, with the first two sections encompassing the majority of the exhibition objects and space:

Gestural Affinities features works on paper by both artists. Its focus is on the thematic and pictorial similarities in the works of the artists. In addition, it will explore the concepts of architectural representation, spatial configurations, animated nature, and energetic gesture.

Office Baroque, Concrete and Sublime Space focuses on Matta-Clark’s work “Office Baroque” (1977) with sculptural objects, including a large building fragment, plans and schematic drawings, art photography, documentary photography, and films. A selection of Matta paintings will be placed in an adjacent gallery to visually bridge from the real place of works by Matta-Clark to the subjective space of Matta’s paintings.

Reflecting Duchamp focuses on a small number of works that illustrate Duchamp’s influence on and importance in the work of Matta and Matta-Clark. It includes Matta’s The Bachelors Twenty Years After (1943) and Matta-Clark’s Blast from the Past (1972–73), as well as Box in a Valise and some late etchings by Duchamp.

Underground Paris focuses on Matta-Clark’s Sous-Sol (1977) projects and includes montage photography and video.

Traces and Evidence presents biographical ephemera, including photographs, correspondence, exhibition announcements, pamphlets, and video.

Roberto Matta (1912–2002)
Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren, known simply as Matta, was born in 1912, in Santiago, Chile, into an upper-class family of Spanish, French, and Basque descent. Educated in the field of architecture but anxious to broaden his horizons, Matta left for Paris in 1933 to work in the studio of Le Corbusier. In 1937, Matta formally became a member of the Surrealists and exhibited in the Paris International Surrealist Exhibition in 1938. Following the first wave of Surrealist émigrés, Matta moved to New York City in 1939 with his first wife, Anne Clark. Twin sons, Gordon and John Sebastián (known as Batan), were born in 1943, but within two years Matta and Anne divorced. Matta played an important role in instilling the ideas of Surrealism into the U.S. art scene, an influence particularly evident in works of the emerging Abstract Expressionist movement at the time. Through the 1950s, Matta’s own art shifted from fluid, curving forms to more angular, machinelike shapes set within a highly charged universe. Restless, and peripherally involved in the politics of Chile, Matta traveled often between Europe and South America during the decades of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, setting up multiple residences in Rome, Paris, and London. He died in Tarquinia, Italy, on November 25, 2002.

Gordon Matta-Clark (1943–1978)
With a father who was an important member of the émigré Surrealist group in New York and with Teeny and Marcel Duchamp for godparents, Matta-Clark was exposed from an early age to a wide circle of avant-garde artistic influences. In 1962, he entered the School of Architecture at Cornell University, graduating with a B.A. in 1968. By the early 1970s, Matta-Clark was collaborating frequently with other artists and often took on a leadership role in these endeavors. In 1970, he co-founded 112 Greene Street, an exhibition space for new art, and Food, a combination restaurant and performance venue. During this prolific period, Matta-Clark sawed and cut through the floors, walls, and roofs of numerous buildings destined for destruction while a film camera recorded every nuance of execution. Terming his artistic practice “anarchitecture,” he created one of his most impressive projects, Splitting, in 1974, which entailed cleaving an entire abandoned wood-frame house in Englewood, New Jersey, and tipping the structure from its foundation. In 1977, Matta-Clark received a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, which he used to complete his Sous-Sols de Paris and Substrait (Underground Dailies) projects. Matta-Clark succumbed to cancer in 1978.

Catalogue
The catalogue for Transmission includes scholarly essays by the London-based art historian Briony Fer, New York-based architectural theorist Anthony Vidler, Santiago, Chile-based art critic Justo Pastor Mellado, and SDMA’s curator of contemporary art, Betti-Sue Hertz.

Transmission: The Art of Matta and Gordon Matta-Clark is made possible by the generous support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the LEF Foundation, the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, the County of San Diego Community Enhancement Program, and members of the San Diego Museum of Art.

Museum Information

San Diego Museum of Art
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The historic San Diego Museum of Art provides a rich and diverse cultural experience for more than 400,000 annual visitors. Its nationally renowned permanent collection includes Spanish and Italian old masters, South Asian paintings, 19 th - and 20 th -century American paintings and sculptures, and works by contemporary artists. The Museum also offers an extensive year-round schedule of supporting educational and cultural programs.