Economic Policy, Political Philosophy, and Queer Studies

In this review of the Whitney Museum's David Wojnarowicz retrospective for the CUNY Graduate Center's Gotham Center for New York City History, we explore Wojnarowicz as a representative figure of the experimentalism in art-practices and urban living that occurred in the 1970s/1980s New York City.

This article first examines the complex relationship that underground culture has with brick-and-mortar institutions ("depends on specific spaces yet transcends the particulars of place"), then employs Sharon Zukin's analysis of kairological images to explore how individual myth-making and commercial interests make use of such institutions after they are no longer hosts to underground or avant-garde culture.

The traditional narrative of 20th century New York urban living has often concerned itself with the antipodal philosophies of urban planner Robert Moses and critic Jane Jacobs. This binary conception of American urban life contrasted Moses’ radical projects to remake New York City to suit the automobile with Jacobs’ admonishments that quality of life required small, organic neighborhoods of diverse inhabitants and independent businesses. These philosophies, however, were no longer applicable in 1970s New York. In a new city characterized by crisis, ruins, and abandonment, a fundamentally new way of conceiving of the urban realm was required. The artist, activist, and ‘un-builder’ Gordon Matta-Clark was one of the first to explore and embody an alternative—and he remains a representative figure of the unique culturo-political ferment of 1970s New York. This paper argues that Matta-Clark’s art, actions, and writings express his vision of the de-industrializing metropolis as a city of possibility and that his approach to the urban realm rejected a clean image of historical continuity in favor of the radical discontinuity of times of disaster. We claim that he accepted the city as it was, presently, for him—dirty, contested, and struggling—and devised strategies for reclaiming dignity amidst a ruinous landscape. A key cultural instigator and advocate for a particular type of urban commons, Matta-Clark was more than an artist and activist; he was, in his unique manner, both an urban planner and urban philosopher—his work embodying Henri Lefebvre’s notion of the ideal city as the “perpetual oeuvre of the inhabitants.”
[This article published by the CUNY Grad Center is the general readership version of an upcoming academic article.]