Join us as we celebrate the opening of our next exhibition, Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark, on Friday, October 30 from 5pm - 9pm.

Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978) used neglected structures slated for demolition as his raw material.  He carved out sections of buildings with a power saw in order to reveal their hidden construction, to provide new ways of perceiving space, and to create metaphors for the human condition.  When wrecking balls knocked down his sculpted buildings, little remained.  He took photographs and films of his interventions and kept a few of the building segments.  The placement of Matta-Clark’s work in the building by Tadao Ando offers the means to recall the artist’s lost interventions.  Ando's and Matta-Clark's structures break the visual and symbolic boundaries normally associated with the architectural “box” by allowing light to penetrate spaces in unexpected ways.  Moreover, the exhibition programming builds upon Matta-Clark’s desire to give abandoned objects and buildings new meaning by connecting the artist’s social activism to present-day St. Louis.

The Pulitzer, in collaboration with Washington University’s George Warren Brown School of Social Work, is organizing exhibition programming that will build upon Matta-Clark’s desire to imbue abandoned objects, buildings, and parcels of land with new meaning.  The Pulitzer hopes to help carry Matta-Clark’s legacy into the 21st century and to inspire a new generation of social activism through creative acts.