Gordon Matta-Clark & Alvin Baltrop /‘The Piers From Here’ @ Open Eye Gallery [7th Dec – 9th Feb
For anyone who knows the work of Gordon Matta-Clark or Alvin Baltrop, the recent exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery on Liverpool’s pier, is a beautiful collaborative project; combing two artists’ work, the link being, the post-industrial, ruinous urban landscape of New York’s piers in the by-gone era of the 1970s, through the medium of photography.
Although Matta-Clark is remembered for his significant building cuts, such as the work featured in this exhibition: Days End, he is beginning to be regarded as an important marker in the documentary photography, that we are so adamantly clutching onto. For this collection of photographs is all the evidence that is left of the bleak urban landscape; shown here through Baltrop’s depiction of the individuals who inhabited the piers, and Matta-Clark’s mighty intervention with the buildings that were located there.
Two narratives are intertwined here, within the history of what is displayed; through the documentary photographs of Matta-Clark’s work, we are able to distinguish an empty, desolate pier front. Cut into the large steel structures, almost as an act of violence, are large half-moon shapes
Alvin Baltrop, (b.1948) documented the stray communities who inhabited the Piers alongside the Hudson River. From both a distant vantage point, and at close range, he drew out the nature of the individuals who lived there, with whom he had developed close relationships.
From a purely aesthetic point of view, these photographs are arresting; Baltrop has delicately captured rare moments that seem so far from the context of modern-day New York. He has conveyed a sense of wilderness in amongst these industrial buildings, once used for a glorified maritime trade, now overrun by sex radicals and gay communities. It is clear that there is no shame in the unambiguous full-frontal nudity that most of his subjects display, they stare right out at you, daring you to look away. Upon my visit to Open Eye, I heard one woman explain “well these are just plain pornographic.” – it should be noted that nude shots are sectioned off in the upper gallery so as not to alarm the everyday gallery-goer.
There is a truth in this photography that many modern-day photographers try to express, but few succeed in obtaining; the truth is the element of collective hardship combined with a sense of freedom that joined these individuals together.
The photographs themselves are small prints, displayed at eye level, close together, in a dark room. You have to study them closely to decipher the content, unlike the first room, which presents a series of large prints of Matta Clark’s Days End, alongside video footage of its execution; Matta Clark, hanging from what looks like makeshift fastening, slicing the enormous half moon shape out of the side of one of the deserted buildings.
The element of risk (and risque) that builds up the narrative to this exhibition is symptomatic of the Pier culture in New York at the time. In one photograph (of Baltrop’s) three, slightly overweight, police officers surround a skinny, naked figure laid out on the dock, it is unclear what the figure is doing there, how he got there, and whether he is even alive, but the officers’ presence in the shot is the first instance that any form of ‘system’ is represented.
In another photograph, taken from across the water, you can just make out five or six figures basking in the sun, feet dangling over the edge of the pier, and in the background, one of Matta-Clark’s shapes has been cut out of the building, creating a large semi-circular black hole. The presence of Matta-Clark’s Days End in Baltrop’s photographs, hints at the fact that these two artists existing within the same locale, although it is not known whether they ever met.
If they didn’t meet at the time, their work, here comes together in a validation of their attempts to realise a post-modern, urban blight. Seen through Matta-Clark’s semi-violent building cuts in Days End, and Baltrop’s exclusive insight into the sub-culture which had formed, we become aware of how far removed we are from that bygone era. For anyone who knows New York now, restored to its former glory, the raw scenery and events depicted in this exhibition, speak of a time lost, retained only through this documentary footage.
Open Eye Gallery, situated on Livepool’s docklands, provides a linear connection to this history, if only by the transatlantic maritime route that linked Europe to the Americas in its heyday. For anyone who interested in photography, politics or the history of New York, this exhibition is a culmination of ideas that are still relevant today, through a very different, far-removed context.
‘The Piers From Here’ is on display from 7th Dec ’13 – 9th Feb ’14 10.30am to 5.30pm, Tuesday to Sunday
Photograph courtesy of e-flux.com