1970's American Art Exhibition

I decided to visit the barbican art gallery to see their current exhibition of Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown and Gordon Matta-Clark's  Pioneers of the down town 1970's New York.

This was an interesting exhibition, and it wasn't like anything I had seen before, however I do wish it had been more related to what I am currently working on. The exhibition examines the different approaches taken by three key figure in the burgeoning arts scene.

Laurie Anderson: Performance artist and musician.
Trisha Brown: Choreographer
Gorden Matta-Clark: Artist
 All three were friends and active in creating a vibrant art community in a recession.

I found different areas of the exhibition more influential and interesting than others, like any creative person. The areas of the exhibitions that really stood out to me were:

Urban Interventions

 Inspired in part by the gravity-defying performance of Trishia Brown, Gorden Matta-Clark.
Matta-Clark's work is below looking at splitting buildings in complex all most performance like ways.

Reality Properties: Fake Estates

Anarchitecture, 1974

In early 1970's Matta-Clark purchased 15 lots of "gutter space", so that he could then collect the maps. deeds and other documents attached to these anomalous spaces.

Reality Properties: Fake Estates "Long Alley"

Performance and Interaction 

The community of like minded artists in downtown New York lived and worked in large lofts that at times doubled up as rehearsal, performance and gallery spaces. 

The work began to be performed on the streets of downtown New York before then developing into art galleries. 

Planes, 1968

Floor of the Forest, 1970

Walking on the Wall, 1971

Open House, 1972

Drawing and Performing

 Immediate, economical and highly portable, drawing came into its own as a medium during the late1960's and early 1970's as artists shifted emphasis away from the object and towards ideas, process, performance and timed based works.

This is what interested me most as some of the works we colour full and created lovely patterns that I could visualise as prints.

Untitled, 1975

Duet for Door Jamb and Violin, 1976

Unfortunately I was unable to take photographs of how they presented the works above, such as " Floor of the Forest", in which we had performers to watch. There was the industrial unit that they had created to perform in, which had really interesting graffiti on it.