#1970s-new-york

#1970s-new-york

Adapted from Rosenkrantz' book of the same name, published in 2022, the film hinges on a single conversation in December 1974, as Hujar recounts, almost pedantically, everything he did the previous day. Drawn from a long-lost tape, the monologue turns errands, meals and irritations into a portrait of an artist's inner life. It trades plot for precision, offering instead a study of friendship, attention and the conditions of making work in 1970s New York.

Gordon Matta-Clark is best known for his "cuttings" of abandoned and derelict structures in 1970s New York, which made open-air sculptures out of symbols of decay and were seen as an early exercise in deconstructivism. Besides slicing up piers and houses, he also founded an experimental gallery at 112 Greene Street in Soho and Food, the legendary artist-run restaurant that he co-created with Carol Goodden and Tina Girouard, which, like the building cuts, blurred the boundary between art-making and life.

In the mid-1970s, New York was broke, crumbling, and on the edge of collapse. Garbage piled up on sidewalks, unions fought bitterly with City Hall, and bankers refused to buy the bonds that kept the city running. The sense of crisis reached its peak when the Daily News captured the mood with one of the most famous headlines in American history: "Ford to City: Drop Dead."