IN A CAREER THAT SPANNED LITTLE MORE THAN A DECADE, the American artist Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978) redefined sculpture in ways that still resonate today. The expansive retrospect of his work at the Whitney Museum of American Art,which closes this weekend, reveals the life, the times and the actions of this charismatic rebel whose major works no longer exist.

Matta-Clark, who began his career in New York during the early 1970s when the city was on the verge of bankruptcy, made the process of decay and renewal the cornerstone of his art. At the time, the neighborhood that became known as Soho was in even greater decline due to the threat of the Lower Manhattan Expressway, spearheaded by Robert Moses. Small manufacturers were fleeing; in their wake were hundreds of empty industrial loft buildings whose large spaces proved to be a magnet for artists. Photo left: Gordon Matta-Clark: Splitting. Courtesy of the estate of the Artist/SFMOMA, 1974.

Matta-Clark trained as an architect at Cornell University and was familiar with the area through the School of Art and Architecture's New York Program. In 1964, he and classmates made the district the subject of their urban design thesis. A large-scale model of the area, labeled "Soho" in stencil letters, proposed reclaiming the district for mixed residential and commercial use.

When Matta-Clark returned to the city following his graduation in 1968, he gathered colleagues and friends, the artists, musicians and dancers who become the pioneers of Soho. Cheap rents enabled them to turn the ground floor of 112 Greene Street into a free-flowing exhibition and performance space that later evolved into White Columns, New York's oldest alternative arts space.

They also opened an artist-run cooperative restaurant aptly named Food, which provided jobs to artists and a Dada-esque approach to dining that nearly ate up a collaborator's inheritance. A pied piper whose nature it was to take huge risks, he inspired anarchy. In fact, his group coined the term "anarchitecture" to describe a form of urban earth work that was their art.

The exhibition at the Whitney brings together the diverse yet highly focused projects of Gordon Matta-Clark. Known for his "building cuts," he used heavy equipment with great delicacy, slicing geometric openings through condemned buildings. After transforming an abandoned city-owned Hudson river pier into a shimmering monument to light and reflections, he fled to Europe to escape prosecution. There he completed several spectacular projects that now only exist as a series of huge, glossy multi-paneled Cibachrome prints joined onto plywood with industrial hardware.

The performance aspect of Matta-Clark's work was diligently recorded on film over the span of his career. During the last several years, a team of editors, under the direction of his widow, Jane Crawford, pieced together hundreds of hours of footage, some of which can be seen on monitors randomly placed in the gallery and surrounded by little plywood stools. One documents a day in the life at Food. In a scene in the kitchen, where a couple of artists are stirring huge pots, he walks in and says, "What's going on here?" Looking at the scope and variety of work on display, one gets the feeling that Gordon Matta-Clark probably asked the same question every day. Photo right: Gordon Matta-Clark at work on Splitting in 1974. Courtesy of the estate of the artist/David Zwirner, New York.

Gordon Matta-Clark: You Are the Measure remains on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, through June 3. The exhibition travels to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Sept. 16, 2007-Jan. 7, 2008; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Feb. 2, 2008-May 4, 2008.

A Gordon Matta-Clark Reader
Michael Kimmelman, The New York Times
James Attlee, Tate Gallery
Nicolai Ouroussoff, The New York Times
Anthony Vidler, Art Forum
Ned Smyth, ArtNet
Randy Kennedy, The New York Times
Michael Kimmelman, The New York Times