High Line Channel: Gordon Matta-Clark, City Slivers
HIGH LINE CHANNEL
Gordon Matta-Clark, City Slivers
On View Tuesday, November 29, 2011 to Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Exterior Wall next to the High Line at West 22nd Street
Presented by Friends of the High Line, High Line Art is pleased to launch High Line Channel, a new, outdoor video program featuring daily screenings that will be visible not only from the High Line, but also from the sidewalk along West 22nd Street, from dusk to 10:00 PM.
HIGH LINE CHANNEL will feature art films and videos, including historic works, new productions, and curated series. During the High Line’s regular operating hours, High Line Channel can be viewed from the Seating Steps, on the High Line at West 22nd Street, or from the sidewalk directly below the park.
To launch HIGH LINE CHANNEL, High Line Art is collaborating with Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) to present Gordon Matta-Clark’s City Slivers, a film created in 1976 and originally projected on the exterior façade of the Municipal Building in Lower Manhattan during the Arcades exhibition.
Matta-Clark’s City Slivers is an ode to New York City’s landscape. Using photograph mattes to partially cover the camera lens, Matta-Clark fragments the film frame into narrow vertical strips that offer glimpses of urban life and captures the syncopated rhythm and texture of the city. The film features scenes such as aerial views of taxi-filled avenues, the Empire State Building presiding over the Manhattan skyline, and people moving through revolving doors, with many of the viewpoints contrasting the static presence of the buildings and architectural structures against the ceaseless flow of traffic and pedestrians.
About the Artist
Gordon Matta-Clark was born in New York in 1943 and died in 1978. He studied French literature at the Sorbonne and Architecture at Cornell University. From the early 1970s, as a founding member of the artist-run Food Restaurant in New York's SoHo neighborhood, Matta-Clark participated in numerous group exhibitions and projects. His work was presented in Documenta V, Kassel, Germany, and at exhibitions in Sao Paolo, Berlin, Zurich, and in the 9th Biennale de Paris. Major projects by Matta-Clark were staged in Aachen, Paris, and Antwerp. Following his death, important retrospective exhibitions have been organized at institutions around the world, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, Germany; IVAM Centro Julio Gonzalez, Valencia, Spain; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, among others.
About Electronic Arts Intermix: Celebrating 40 Years
Founded in 1971, Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) is a nonprofit arts organization that is a leading international resource for video and media art. A pioneering advocate for media art and artists, EAI's core program is the distribution and preservation of a major collection of over 3,500 new and historical video works by artists. For 40 years, EAI has fostered the creation, exhibition, distribution, and preservation of video art, and more recently, digital art projects. EAI supports artists through the distribution, preservation, exhibition, and representation of their media artworks, and works closely with educators, curators, programmers, and collectors to facilitate exhibitions, acquisitions, and educational uses of media artworks. EAI provides access to moving image art within an educational and cultural framework, including extensive public programs and comprehensive online resources.
Support
HIGH LINE CHANNEL is presented by Friends of the High Line and the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. High Line Art Commissions are made possible by Donald R. Mullen, Jr., with additional support from Vital Projects Fund, Inc. High Line Art is supported, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
     
