International Journal of Art and Art History

Dialectical Space: The Case Studies of Alfredo Jaar and Gordon Matta-Clark
Jesús Segura Cabañero, Toni Simó Mulet

Abstract
In this paper we analyse a series of artistic practices that address social, political and conceptual practices by transformingthe spatiality and temporality existing in a “place”. Hence, many ways of thinking are revealed and new spatialities are enabled by means of contemporary art and thereby we assume that contemporary artistic production is a fundamental part of the new analysis of the spatio-temporal geographies. We focus on analyzing spatial shifts which occur in the context of works of art that are under the terms of the frequency of production and consumption paradigm shifts of postmodernism. In examining these issues we have chosen two artists: Alfredo Jaar and Gordon Matta-Clark. We analyze Alfredo Jaar's works that take the form of performances and interventions in public space, unfolding furtive signs that reveal spatio-temporal impossibilities and Matta- Clark’sworks that act directly on the social and spatial substrate. These processes are made from a clear intention to “dialectize” image, object and space.

Full Text: PDF       DOI: 10.15640/ijaah.v3n2a1