The Gordon Matta-Clark exhibit was striking. Matta-Clark preserved parts (and when I say "parts", I mean cross-sections in some cases) of derelict or abandoned buildings by dissecting them with a chainsaw. This means that you'd be confronted with the top triangle of a farmhouse roof, with a view into the layers comprising it. Or a cross-section of a tenement apartment, with layers from floor to ceiling. Seeing the guts of these once-living beings instilled a sense of compassion in me. Compassion because things that I wouldn't normally see were exposed to me--the subfloor, the insulation of a wall, the layers of a roof, as well as because parts of a building that I'm not typically able to see in such great detail (e.g., the crest of a roof) were 6 inches from my nose. But mostly because seeing all of the layers layers and levels and materials only made me think of the people who gave the buildings life--both by creating them and by living in them.
Whenever I live in an old apartment, I am forced to imagine the history of it. I try to imagine all of the people who have cared for it before I. All of the holidays, celebrations, and eventful times--good or bad--that have happened there before I even arrived on this earth. Has anyone died there? Or better, been born there? All I know is, Matta-Clark and I would have gotten on just fine. He, too, realized his role as a caretaker of these brick-and-mortal beings.
http://www.pulitzerarts.org/resources/press/exhibition/mattaclark/
No photography is allowed inside, but here are some angles of Ando's building.
Me, dropping some science in a Serra sculpture called Joe.
Me, dropping some science in a Serra sculpture called Joe.
It doesn't look like much from the outside--and doesn't seem as large as it is on the inside--but Joe is a striking and interactive piece. 
