In the 1970s, American artist Gordon Matta-Clark challenged the very definition of architecture as a regulating system. With a heightened sense of civic engagement and technical precision, the artist cut into, around, and through the façades of neglected and abandoned buildings, transforming architecture into sculpture. Matta-Clark took seriously the practice of documentation, relentlessly photographing his work, and, at times, exhibiting actual building fragments as artworks. Often described as “anarchitecture,” a portmanteau of anarchy and architecture, Matta-Clark’s work toed the line between creativity and destruction.

–Nora Severson Cafritz, from the Glenstone Field Guide