Gordon Matta-Clark: Bingo, 1974 in MoMA's Gallery 400

alex · August 14, 2025, 2:50pm

I first saw Bingo, 1974 in February of 2024, during “Drop-in Drawing (400: Trisha Brown / Gordon Matta-Clark)” at the MoMA, and it completely activated me.

Creation, making the house, the piece, in between, maintenance, disintegration, homeworld, the materials that make it so - assembly, the possibilities inside of disassembly, not that I would categorize building cuts under disassembly, but they give us a view into reconsidering what we made, nostalgic-familyhouse vibes, that green, the layers, figuring out just how to cut a house (to cut a house!). Exhilarating. Challenging.

I’m pretty sure that I had never seen or heard of Gordon’s work before then. It was the Tina Girouard exhibition at CARA, SIGN-IN, that led me here (confirmed my attendance once I learned about Gordon’s connection to Tina, through FOOD).

And I found Girouard’s work while digging into Mary Heilmann’s work and life, kicked off by a talk about The Book of Night, on April 26, 2024, as part of NY Art Book Fair’s Classroom series, about how Printed Matter approached making a facsimile of it… Eventually, I made it to Dia Beacon and saw the real real Book of Night (twice - so far). Magic.

Three of the nine pieces that comprised Bingo/Ninths, 1974, have been on view at MoMA, as least since February 2024 in Gallery 400.

The making of Bingo, 1974, as well as other work by Gordon Matta-Clark, can be experienced through film documentation.

A lot of it has no soundtrack. You are just there in the midst of Gordon and friends making, which takes time.

Take the time.

From left to right, we’re looking at pieces 7, 8, and 3. I’m pretty sure about it. So, the left one sat above the middle one when it was making a house.

So, here we’re looking at the inside side of pieces 3, 8, and 7.

Seeing it done, being made, unmade, transformed…

Documentary films of all of these works are available to view at UbuWeb’s Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978)

Tree Dance (1971)
Fresh Kill (1972)
Food (1972)
Open House (1972)
Automation House (1972)
Clockshower (1973)
Splitting, Bingo/Ninths, Substrait (Underground Dailies) (1974-1976)
Conical Intersect (1975), 19:24 min
Day’s End (1975), 23:10 min, color, silent, Super 8mm film on video
City Slivers (1976)
Office Baroque (1977)
The Wall (1976-2007)
Sous-Sols de Paris (Paris Underground) (1977-2005)

YouTube

Holly Solomon, the Glamorous Collector Who Became an Influential Dealer | Artsy << Holly Solomon got the house for Gordon to split …because he said he needed a house. To split.

With sound, and even a little of Gordon talking..

You can learn a bit more about Gordon’s work in this video connecting Day’s End (2014-21) by David Hammons to the original Day’s End, 1975: Gordon Matta-Clark’s Day’s End | David Hammons: Day’s End.

It was built on the exact spot, to the same dimensions as the original Day’s End building cut of the massive Pier 52 waste transfer station.