The breadth and depth of this show is little short of stun­ning and, like Gordon Matta-Clark’s work, unfolds a never-​ending series of ques­tions, about archi­tec­ture, con­struc­tion, decon­struc­tion, per­for­mance, space and the micro­cos­mic pol­i­tics of urban living.

This is because Matta-​Clark is one slip­pery cus­tomer. His works are easily described—most revolve around cuts made into the fabric of con­demned build­ings—but they are unde­fin­able, open-​ended inter­ven­tions. When Matta-​Clark slices a build­ing right down the middle, or hol­lows out a con­i­cal space through inte­rior walls, the making of the cuts is a per­for­mance of sorts, and this the­atri­cal­ity con­tin­ues as vis­i­tors nego­ti­ate the newly unsta­ble space. But Matta-​Clark doc­u­ments his actions too, and these uncon­ven­tional (not to men­tion beau­ti­ful) pho­to­graphic prints, sketches and texts do much more than simply record works that, by their very nature, are tran­si­tory. As cura­tor Lisa Le Feuvre asks repeat­edly in her anno­ta­tions, ‘What is the work?’

Attempts to define the nature of these layers of prac­tice – whether action or doc­u­ment – is equally tricky. Try to pin down Matta-​Clark as, say, a sculp­tor, and you must deal with the fact that he lit­er­ally decon­structs build­ings, remov­ing to create, un-​making. Which doesn’t sound much like sculp­ture. Even his stated aims don’t gel, as with each explic­itly polit­i­cal attempt to con­demn the demo­li­tion of exist­ing built land­scapes to make way for the new, Matta-​Clark him­self demol­ished, replac­ing exist­ing forms with the new.

In the end, this ret­ro­spec­tive is one more Matta-​Clark cut into the urban land­scape: after a visit, you will never look at a build­ing in the same way again.