Gordon Matta-Clark: Office Baroque

In 1977, Gordon Matta-Clark (New York, 1943-1978) was invited by the ICC in Antwerp to work on the intervention Office Baroque. At this time, filmmaker Cherica Convents realized the documentary film Office Baroque. Later during that year, she followed Matta-Clark while he worked on Jacob's Ladder for Documenta 6 in Kassel. Thirty-five years later, Cherica Convents has rediscovered unseen excerpts from that film footage. The material shows a thoughtful and talkative Gordon Matta-Clark who, nevertheless, is submerged in brute, hard and physical labour. In the film Summer 77, the camera registers him as if in a dance, an architectural speculation, translated to what the artist himself calls an atmosphere of 'dust, ruins, hardship and spatial complexity'. After restoring the original film, Office Baroque, and after creating Summer 77 in 2012, Cherica Convents decided to finally finish the full edit and production of Jacob's Ladder. Both 30-minute documentary films are an excellent source for in-depth study of one of the 20th Century's most influential artists. The films were presented on 20 March 2013 in Cinema Zuid, followed by a conversation between Cherica Convents and Flor Bex, moderated by Stefaan Vervoort.