This book unpacks the comprehensive Gordon Matta-Clark collection at the CCA (CP138), opening it up to provisional readings from different points of view. Yann Chateigné reorganizes Matta-Clark’s library into areas of inquiry, from alchemy to psychoanalysis, as a framework for gathering traces⁠—written and drawn⁠—of his thinking. Hila Peleg reassembles hours of discarded film footage, challenging the notion of documentation and returning to view the physical and social contexts⁠—the relational space⁠—of Matta-Clark’s interventions. And from hundreds of travel photographs, Kitty Scott constructs a panorama of Matta-Clark’s visual notes on the world around him⁠—a foil to his artworks.

In foregrounding seemingly incidental parts of the collection, these studies manifest an exploratory way of working with archives, by which selecting, presenting, and writing are processes of ongoing research. Rather than synthesize, CP138 Gordon Matta-Clark: Readings of the archive by Yann Chateigné, Hila Peleg, and Kitty Scott extends the scope of what constitutes Matta-Clark’s body of work and thus the physical and intellectual terrain within which to situate it.

Graphic design by Joris Kritis

Published in French as CP138 Gordon Matta-Clark : Les archives revues par Yann Chateigné, Hila Peleg et Kitty Scott
Co-published with Koenig Books
Softcover, 248 pages 

Related exhibitions: Material Thinking: Gordon Matta-Clark selected by Yann Chateigné, Rough Cuts and Outtakes: Gordon Matta-Clark selected by Hila Peleg, Line of Flight: Gordon Matta-Clark selected by Kitty Scott

For more information, listen to CCA x AR Bookshelf podcast: Gordon Matta-Clark.