(New York 1943–1978)
Infraform, 1973, Milan, four C-prints, mounted on cardboard, unique impressions, each 60.5 x 41 cm, each photograph with two labels on the reverse: Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago and Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst (MUHKA), Antwerp, framed, (4), (EK)

Photo certificate issued by the artist, no. 056 (Milan 10/22/76), stamped by Galleria Salvatore Ala, Milan

Provenance:
Galleria Salvatore Ala, Milan
whence acquired by the present owner –
Private Collection, Italy

Exhibited:
Gordon Matta Clark – A Retrospective (travelling exhibition):
Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, 1986
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum
Mönchengladbach, Städtisches Museum
Basel, Kunsthalle;
Lyon/Villeurbanne,
Le Nouveau Musée Antwerp,
Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst – MUHKA
California, Long Beach Museum of Art
Pittsburgh, Carnegie-Mellon University Art Gallery
New York, The Brooklyn Museum
Berkeley, University Art Museum
Canada, University of Regina, Mackenzie Art Gallery
Montreal, Musée d’Art Contemporain
Ithaca, Cornell University, Herbert F. Johnson Museum

Between the 1960s and the 1970s, the tradition of the Italian Grand Tour also attracted itinerant avant-garde artists of the international art scene. One of them is Gordon Matta-Clark, the “anarchitect” who became famous for his works in semi-demolished buildings that he re-shaped using angle grinders, saws and chisels. After completing his studies with flying colours at the Faculty of Architecture at Cornell University, where he was trained on the modernist theories that were fashionable at that time, Matta-Clark left traditional architecture behind and approached the art field: instead of planning new structures, he would hollow out, cut and modify pre-existing ones, in order to create new perspectives and restitute uninhabited, decaying buildings to their dignity and value. However, the radical nature of his projects made it hard for the thirty-year-old artist to find a space as well funds for his works. This was further complicated by the ephemeral nature of his works, which have been preserved only in photographs and video recordings. But in those years Italy offered the New York artist numerous possibilities for the creation of new projects. Matta-Clark’s special relationship with Italy was also the result of his family connection. His father, the Surrealist painter Roberto Sebastián Matta, spent many years in Italy (in Panarea and Tarquinia) and had two Italian partners, one of whom gave birth to Gordon’s stepbrother, Pablo Echaurren. Therefore, it is not surprising that in the summer of 1973 Gordon returned to Milan to create one of his typical works in an abandoned warehouse in the Isola district, which he titled “Infrafom”.

A few years later, Gordon, who had in the meantime founded the Anarchitecture group, was in Milan yet again, after having been invited by the art gallery owner Salvatore Ala. The latter had met Matta-Clark in New York, a city he frequently visited on the grounds of the attraction that its thriving art scene, especially in the SoHo neighbourhood, exerted upon him and of which the architect Matta-Clark was one of the principal representatives. “At that time, many young American artists came to Italy in search of recognition and work opportunities”, reminisces Ala. “Besides Matta-Clark, other artists who came to Italy included Dan Flavin, Richard Serra, Sol LeWitt, Joseph Kosuth, John Baldessari”. In the words of Jane Crawford, the artist’s widow, “Italy was very important for Gordon and profoundly influenced his artistic language. Also, the political debate in Italy corroborated his wish to give art a social dimension, and the Arte Povera movement inspired him for his use of recycled materials.”
(from N. Scevola, The Italian Grand Tour, Casa Vogue, October 2013)