Gordon Matta-Clark Opening = Success
November 4th, 2009As I’m sure all of you already know (because you follow our blog, facebook and twitter accounts faithfully) our Urban Alchemy / Gordon Matta-Clark exhibition opening took place last Friday from 5pm to 9pm. Admittedly, scheduling a 4 hour opening did seem like a long amount of time and we therefore planned to evaluate the visitor attendance flow every hour to figure out if, for future openings, we should open later or close earlier. Much to our excitement, we found that our 900 visitors came in a steady stream – showing up on their way home from work or arriving after a dinner on the town for a glass of wine on our mezzanine. It certainly didn’t hurt the event when the skies cleared just hours before we were slated to open, giving our guests an amazing view of a setting sun against a St. Louis skyline.
For me, this vista really emphasized an important aspect of this exhibition: the correlation between the architecture of Gordon’s work, the Pulitzer building and the surrounding city. Jane Crawford, Gordon Matta-Clark’s widow, was present for the event and gave a poignant speech, saying she thought that Gordon would have been especially touched with this exhibition because of its corresponding community outreach programs, which is not something other galleries and museums have done in the past with his work.
All in all, an auspicious beginning to what will surely be a successful and unique exhibition!
The next event being planned is a Symphony Concert on November 18th, where we will be featuring the work of György Kurtág (Wind Quintet, op. 2 -1959), Bartók (Sonata for solo violin – 1944) and Ligeti (Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet – 1968) – buy your tickets here!
