Blow Out

*

Invited to an exhibition of work by architects and artists, “Idea as Model,” Gordon Matta-Clark elected to show not a new vision of architecture or planned proposal, but the current state of some architects’ model buildings: he displayed photographs of buildings in the South Bronx whose windows has been broken out by its residents. Gordon Matta-Clark's first attempt was a small-scale cutting for one of its seminar rooms - a windowless box of sheetrock.

He changed his plans the day before the opening.

On the night before the opening, Matta-Clark appeared with a BB gun borrowed from Dennis Oppenheim and asked MacNair for permission to shoot out a couple of the windows of the Institute instead. The windows were already cracked, he reasoned, and he would use their empty casement as a frame for photographs of housing projects taken in South Bronx.

However he went on to shoot out every single window.

A shocked Peter Eisenman compared the act to the Crystal Night in 1938 in Germany, and Gordon Matta-Clark had to leave. His work was removed from exhibition and the windows quickly replaced in time for the reception.

* photo taken from Gordon Matta-Clark / ed. by Corrinne Diserens. Essays by Judith Russi Kirshner, London : Phaidon, 2003