PASSING THROUGH MOVING IN AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT: Gordon Matta-Clark New York City Graffiti Photographs, 1972-73

From 1972 to 1973, Gordon MaAa-Clark took over fifteen hundred photographs of graffiti in New York City. Thesepictures are some of the earliest documentation of an emerging art form, and are an under-recognized body of workfrom Matta-Clark-an artist who used the city's crumbling infrastructure to reveal the social and political implicationsof architecture and urban design.This publicaLon features every frame from every roll of film Matta-Clark shot, organized according to the sequence ofcontact sheets in the artist's archive. Taken together, these pictures demonstrate Matta-Clark's obsession with the graffiLthat had exploded across the city's walls, subways, and buses, and show him growing bolder as he moved fromphotographing on the streets and subway platforms, to trespassing in outer borough train yards. While he was out onthese documentary missions, MaAa-Clark also photographed abandoned architecture, infrastructure, and the social lifeof the city. Those pictures are included as well, as they show the relationship between graffiti and themes that are morecommonly associated with the artist's work.An essay by Antonio Sergio Bessa and a text by Jonathan Lethem accompany the photographs.