Bingo/Ninths (1974) by Gordon Matta-Clark
Tuesday, April 21, 2026, 7:30 pm
Constructions / Destructions / Instructions
The Films of Gordon Matta-Clark
Presented in association with Gray Area
Admission: $15 General / $12 Cinematheque Members and Members of Gray Area
Event tickets *coming soon*
Program introduced by Dylan Adamson & Jessamyn Fiore
Gordon Matta-Clark, the artist, urban explorer and “anarchitect” most famous for the “building cuts” he performed on various decomposing structures in the 1970s, made eighteen short films before his untimely death from cancer in 1978. Aside from enabling “walk throughs” of the buildings Matta-Clark worked with (all of which have since been demolished), film provides the ideal venue with which to experience Matta-Clark’s singular artistry: the power of the cut to create strange new juxtapositions, the epistemological faculty of an opening that introduces light to new planes; metaphorical connections between Matta-Clark’s work and the cinematic apparatus abound. This program collects six of his films completed between 1971 and 1976, documenting three building cuts, one site-specific intervention, one formal experiment and one car crash. In all his work, Matta-Clark sought to expose the thinness of the boundaries that divide people, mediums, spaces and ideas. With sledgehammer, chainsaw and his own two feet, he punched through these walls with an urgency that has been increasingly felt in the decades since his passing, cutting new holes for light to pour in. (Dylan Adamson & Jessamyn Fiore, program curators)
SCREENING:
Fire Child (1971) by Gordon Matta-Clark; 16mm, 10 minutes. Fresh Kill (1972) by Gordon Matta-Clark; 16mm, 13 minutes. Bingo/Ninths (1974) by Gordon Matta-Clark; 16mm, 10 minutes. Splitting (1974) by Gordon Matta-Clark; 16mm, 11 minutes. Conical Intersect (1975) by Gordon Matta-Clark; 16mm, 19 minutes. City Slivers (1976) by Gordon Matta-Clark; 16mm, 15 minutes.
TRT: 78 minutes.
Related publication: City Slivers And Fresh Kills: The Films Of Gordon Matta-Clark (Steven Jenkins, ed), published 2004 by San Francisco Cinematheque.
Fire Child (1971) by Gordon Matta-Clark
Inspired by the first Earth Day celebrated in 1970, Matta-Clark sculpted a “garbage wall” made from tin cans, waste paper and other assorted junk under the Brooklyn Bridge. To mark the so-called “Brooklyn Bridge Event,” the group of artists roasted a pig and distributed the meat. (Dylan Adamson & Jessamyn Fiore)
Fresh Kill (1972) by Gordon Matta-Clark
Matta-Clark records in full the deliberate crashing of his truck, nicknamed “Herman Maydag,” in this film made for Documenta 5 in Kassel, West Germany. Documenting his unceasing interest in end-of-life processes and their potential for renewal, the artist himself nearly died in the truck while filming. (Dylan Adamson & Jessamyn Fiore)
Bingo/Ninths (1974) by Gordon Matta-Clark
A playful experiment with boundaries and decomposition. Travelling to Niagara Falls, New York, in August 1974, Matta-Clark created a plan to divide the exterior facade of a house marked for demolition into nine parts. The segments were removed one by one mere hours before bulldozers arrived. (Dylan Adamson & Jessamyn Fiore)
Splitting (1974) by Gordon Matta-Clark
From March to June 1974, Matta-Clark drove to the former working class suburb of Englewood, New Jersey to carve a vertical slice down the middle of a residential house. The gap—propped open by a few jacks placed delicately at corners—introduces light, the world and a sense of possibility to this soon-to-be-demolished domicile. (Dylan Adamson & Jessamyn Fiore)
Conical Intersect (1975) by Gordon Matta-Clark
For the 1975 Paris Biennale, across the street from the construction site of the Centre Georges Pompidou, Matta-Clark carved his most ambitious building cut to date. Inspired by filmmaker Anthony McCall’s “light sculptures,” the cuts take the shape of a bending cone, exposing the building’s centuries of history amidst the transforming neighbourhood. (Dylan Adamson & Jessamyn Fiore)
City Slivers (1976) by Gordon Matta-Clark
Dedicated to his brother Batan, who had recently died after falling from the window of Matta-Clark’s loft, this film presents a series of microscopic views of New York City streets, with the negative exposed one “sliver” at a time before being rewound and an adjacent sliver exposed. As with the building cuts, this film toys with a containerization of space to gesture at the abyss outside. (Dylan Adamson & Jessamyn Fiore)
Dylan Adamson is a critic and programmer based in Toronto. His writing can be found at The Walrus, the Los Angeles Review of Books and elsewhere. He is the technical and collections manager at Vtape and has guest-programmed films at the Toronto International Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives and the Cinematheque Quebecoise.
Jessamyn Fiore is the Director of the Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark as well as a curator and writer. Her curated exhibitions include 112 Greene Street: The Early Years (1970–1974) at David Zwirner in New York (2011) which led to her editing the critically acclaimed, eponymous catalogue, published by David Zwirner and Radius Books (2012). She co-curated (with Sergio Bessa) Gordon Matta-Clark: Anarchitect at The Bronx Museum of the Arts(2017) and subsequently toured to the Jeu de Paume, Paris (2018); Kumu Kunstimuuseum, Tallinn (2019) and the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University(2019). She recently co-curated Gordon Matta-Clark: Graffiti Archive 1972/73 with Roger Gastman of Beyond the Streets for White Columns gallery, New York (March 2025).