The edge of perception : Gordon Matta-Clark’s hermeneutic of place and the possibilities of absence for the theological imagination

Abstract

This article places the conceptual artist Gordon Matta-Clark in conversation with hermeneutical debates within the field of theological aesthetics. By exploring the transformative effect Matta-Clark’s Splitting evokes on spatially related categories, I argue that place is a locus of meaning, and that absence is a constitutive feature of that meaning. The hermeneutics at play in Matta-Clark have a set of formal features which is in accord with certain positions within theological aesthetics, namely: the particularities of place over the generalities of space, the constitutive role of both absence and presence for perception, and the formative power of these on human identity. A final section argues that while meaning is embedded in place, the imagination retains a vital place in the hermeneutical process through its “imaging” function in events of perception.