A JACOB'S LADDER, REMEMBERING GORDON MATTA-CLARK

A documentary made in 2013 about the construction of Gordon Matta-Clark’s Jacob’s Ladder. An original 16mm document sleeping for 35 years in the ‘Cherica Archives’. Filmed in 1977 during the days just before the opening of Documenta 6 in Kassel.

The artwork Jacob’s Ladder was created by Gordon with the help of his German assistant and many others on industrial grounds outside the boundaries of the official Documenta 6 domain.

At Documenta 6 (1977), Kassel, Cherica was filming during the making of Gordon’s “Jacob’s Ladder”. She wanted to edit this images, filmed in June 77 in a  rather dynamic camera style, already a long time ago. There was never any interest from the art world in the past. Gordon defined his “Jacob’s Ladder” as a result of the idea of drawing in space, rather than drawing through things. Gordon told that he always wanted to do a ‘chimney’ and that the ‘chimneys’ before where more like cuttings.  Jacob’s Ladder was about liberating space by occupying free existing space, on the contrary of liberating space by cutting through existing structures, as in Office Baroque. After the restoration of the original Office Baroque movie and the making of Summer 77 in 2012, Cherica decided to finish the full editing and production work around Jacob’s Ladder. Gordon has played such an important role in art history and this project is still relatively unknown. Also Jacob’s Ladder gives us a better understanding for his very last project drawings from 78: the “Sky Hooks”.

Visit the website https://summer77.eu for more background information.