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Now until June 5,  The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts will be featuring a solo exhibition of works by the late American artist, Gordon Matta-Clark. In a very active process, he equipped tools and groups of people to realize his visions, yet often little to nothing physically remained. Urban Alchemy consists of conversational groupings of photography, sketches, film, prints and raw architectural materials to convey his often ephemeral projects.

In the piece, Pier in/out (1973), a part-window, part-wall structure is mounted on a base, while a photo hanging nearby informs the viewer of the negative space that was left in the building. In this piece, delicate paint flakes and caked-on window dust juxtapose abrasive metal and thick glass. The photo shows that, while the window’s view is obscured by soot, Matta-Clark’s “installation” allows one to see into the building. Likewise, Brooklyn Floor is a cut-out floor segment with scuffed blue linoleum covering all but a sliver of worn carpet flanked by wooden molding. The chunk of building does not look produced, but lived-in, found and appropriated. The object is paired with a photograph of the floor, minus the cut-out section.

Clever titles that increase the complexity of the object are often employed by Matta-Clark. For example, the work Anarchitecture is twenty-five silver gelatin prints that depict abandoned man-made structures. Another work in which the title pronounces visual and conceptual complexity is Wallspaper. In this work, pictures of walls with materiality articulated through crumbling brick, fractured drywall and peeling paint are printed in a nauseating color scheme. In a reference to itself, these printed sheets of paper line the entry walls, much like a bizarre wallpaper and depicting walls themselves.

Although placed at an awkward angle in the long stretch of the gallery, Bingo (1974) is the largest, and perhaps most compelling, object in the exhibition. The wall spans just over twenty-five feet. The selection of the chosen wall segment is specific and holds a solid composition. The remaining halves of windows and slices of stairs suggest the process to achieve was as effortless and arbitrary as cutting through paper. This piece is not only notable in size, but also strikes an emotional cord as it is the most domestic of the buildings in the exhibition. The exterior is layered with patched shingles like sewn mending on a roughly-loved child’s toy.  Matta-Clark’s depiction plays with our perception of buildings and their architectural elements. The viewer is left to question whether these “fragments of place” represent a sanctuary of comfort, commerce, industry or, alternatively, suggest hostility through his acts of destruction.

The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts is located at 3716 Washington Boulevard and is open Wednesdays, Noon – 5pm and Saturdays, 10am – 5pm.