The oeuvres of Gordon Matta-Clark and Pope.L are enormously dissimilar, the former’s eliciting a sense of isolation, and the latter’s generally dominated by collectivity. But their foundations are rooted in shared fixations: the problematics of architecture, language, institutions, scale, and value. The interdisciplinary nature of their subject matters is mirrored in the artists’ practices, which span across and experiment within the structures of numerous mediums, including performance, film, and drawing.

Curated by Ebony L. Haynes, Impossible Failures pairs the artists’ works, which when placed beside one another, are only further resonant in their thematic parallels—guided by an unwavering fascination with decentralization, with repositioning one’s gaze toward the urban landscape whose complexities are easily erased by the monotony of everyday life. The works of Matta-Clark and Pope.L challenge their audiences to engage, to stimulate that which one easily becomes numb to in a saturated landscape—their poignance lingering well past the experience of them face-to-face.

Pope.L studio, 2022. © Pope.L. Courtesy the artist and 52 Walker, New York.

Impossible Failures is on view at 52 Walker through April 1, 2023.