PASSING THROUGH MOVING IN AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT: GORDON MATTA-CLARK NEW YORK CITY GRAFFITI PHOTOGRAPHS, 1972–73 by Gordon Matta-Clark [SECOND PRINTING]

A collection of works by American artist Gordon Matta-Clark.

Between 1972 and 1973, the artist photographed over 1,500 pieces of graffiti in New York City. The images included in this book are among the earliest records of the period when graffiti began to emerge as a form of expression, and they represent a body of work that has received little attention, even within the artist’s oeuvre, which used the city’s crumbling infrastructure to reveal the social and political implications of architecture and urban design.

This book includes every frame from every roll of film taken, arranged according to the sequence of contact sheets in the artist’s archive. His obsession with graffiti, which had spread explosively across walls, subways, and buses, can be read as a process that grew increasingly daring, moving from photography on the streets and subway platforms to trespassing in outer-borough train yards.

While making these documentary photographs, the artist also photographed abandoned buildings and infrastructure, as well as social life in the city. These photographs are also included, revealing the relationship between graffiti and the themes more commonly associated with the artist’s work.

The photographs are accompanied by an essay by art historian Antonio Sergio Bessa and a text by novelist and essayist Jonathan Lethem.

The artist regarded graffiti as a transgressive, anti-authoritarian practice and saw it as resonating with many qualities he explored in his own work. The title of this book comes from a text the artist jotted down in a notebook several years before he began taking these photographs. It can be read as referring either to the artist’s own creative process or to the experience of a boy sneaking into subway tunnels late at night with a spray can in hand.

From 1972 to 1973, Gordon Matta-Clark took over fifteen hundred photographs of graffiti in New York City. These pictures are some of the earliest documentation of an emerging art form, and are an under-recognized body of work from Matta-Clark—an artist who used the city’s crumbling infrastructure to reveal the social and political implications of architecture and urban design.

This publication features every frame from every roll of film Matta-Clark shot, organized according to the sequence of contact sheets in the artist’s archive. Taken together, these pictures demonstrate Matta-Clark’s obsession with the graffiti that had exploded across the city’s walls, subways, and buses, and show him growing bolder as he moved from photographing on the streets and subway platforms, to trespassing in outer borough train yards. While he was out on these documentary missions, Matta-Clark also photographed abandoned architecture, infrastructure, and the social life of the city. Those pictures are included as well, as they show the relationship between graffiti and themes that are more commonly associated with the artist’s work.

An essay by Antonio Sergio Bessa and a text by Jonathan Lethem accompany the photographs.

BY Gordon Matta-Clark