Walls Paper at Printed Matter

a composite image of gordon matta clark's artist book walls paper on the left, with its black and white softcover photo cover of a multistory wall in a bronx apartment building mid-demolition, exposing the interiors of now-vacant apartments, and on the right, the young hippie artist himself, white, long brown hair, some kind of hobo hat and denim jacket standing in a printing shop reviewing a large spread of newsprint which has been printed with his photos of the exposed wall paper. all this is via printed matter, which has an exhibition of the artist's books in the autumn of 2026
Walls Paper and Gordon Matta-Clark looking at printed matter, now at Printed Matter

I’d planned to wait til I saw it IRL, but Shannon Mattern’s post made me want to hype Printed Matter’s Gordon Matta-Clark Walls Paper show beforehand, too.

New Openings Against Old Surfaces focuses on Matta-Clark’s artist book practice, and its emergence from the 1972 exhibition at 112 Greene St where Walls Paper first incarnations appeared. Matta-Clark first showed his photos of exposed interior walls on newsprint, “in long newsprint strips from ceiling to floor, and a version offered in tall stacks that one could freely take and hang at home.” The sliced book version followed in 1973.

a white guy's hand holds open a copy of gordon matta-clark's artist book walls paper to a spread of four mismatched color printed photos of details of wallpaper patterns. the pages are all cut horizontally across the middle so the top and bottom spreads can turn independently. this book is for sale as of sept 2026

New Openings Against Old Surfaces: On Gordon Matta-Clark’s Walls Paper,
9 Sept – 29 November 2026 [printedmatter.org, h/t @shannonmattern]
If PM runs out of copies of Walls Paper, lmk; I still have a couple