Floored

Came across this work by Gordon Matta Clark - Bronx Floor - which was in the recent exhibition at the Barbican art gallery. One of the original "earth artists", Matta Clark is best known for works in which he opened up and tore apart houses. He died in 1978 at the age of 35.

It's no surprise to learn that his degree was in architecture. There's a long article about the 1974 Anarchitecture exhibition, and his relation to Le Corbusier, at the Tate Papers site - here's a short excerpt -

"One of Le Corbusier’s prime aims was to abolish the hidden infrastructure that lay beneath the streets, along with its unofficial inhabitants, making conduits for all services easily accessible. In contrast, Matta-Clark saw the underground as one of the last repositories of history in North America that had not disappeared under parking lots, and worried that it was now under threat from the ever-deeper foundations of new buildings. Working within the influence of the surrealist tradition, he celebrated the unconscious, the irrational in the urban environment. When the forces of control break down – most noticeably in the case of 1970s New York, the garbage disposal services – the rat, a denizen of the underworld, emerges into the light of day. Instead of causing us to recoil in horror, Matta-Clark suggests with dark humour, the rat, along with the shadowy unexplored regions it inhabits, should be cherished."