“A BUILDING WITH A VIEW”: EXPERIMENTS IN ANARCHITECTURE

Curated by Andrea Andersson
Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans
Exhibition Dates: August 6 – October 1, 2016
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 6, 2016, 5:30pm (during White Linen Night)

Review:
Gambit Weekly – D. Eric Bookhardt

About the exhibition:
“Methods of Occupation (A term of transforming space to suit one’s needs)
By Superimposition
By Envelopment
By Consumption
By Digestion”

“A response to cosmetic design
Completion through removal
Completion through collapse
Completion in emptiness”

“A Building With A View”
—Gordon Matta-Clark, excerpts from his Art Cards

In 1974, roughly two years before the founding of the CAC, the artist Gordon Matta-Clark, together with a group of artists including many native to Southeastern Louisiana, coined the term Anarchitecture. A word used to title an exhibition, to describe a form of thinking, to bind a community of friends and artists, and to acknowledge space as a social and formal condition, Anarchitecture pointed to an interdisciplinary spirit of the times that helped usher in contemporary arts centers across the country and, significantly, here in New Orleans.

As we begin our commemoration of the 40th Anniversary of the founding of the CAC, this exhibition also serves as a formal meditation on the concept of Anarchitecture, an elision of the words architecture and anarchy. This exhibition presents the work of regional artists who examine the relationships between spatial and social conditions.