Beauty in the Void
One of the clearest examples of Roberto Matta utilizing empty space as a focal point is in his painting "Disasters of Mysticism (Year Unknown)." The piece has a very detailed and intricate depiction of a man being encased in ice, but the focal point of the painting is the black void to the right, where all the perspective lines converge and small blobs of color draw the viewer's attention. The painting, depicting what happens to a man who is taken in by the glamor of magic and ignores the dark risks associated with its practice, is made to parallel this experience in the reader, as they are forced to look into the darkness, and actively looking away at the brighter and more exciting parts of the piece reveal the morbid details sealed within.
Gordon Matta-Clark used negative space in almost all of his exhibitions, from "Splitting (1974)" having an entire half of a house and all its furniture removed, to "Conical Intersect (1975)," which involves the cutting of a large cone through several floors of a condemned house in France. Like "Splitting (1974)," "Conical Intersect (1975)" was a public and taped art exhibition performed on a condemned home, in this case one which was slated to be knocked down in order to expand a nearby city square. Part of the appeal to condemned houses itself is the absence of life in them, often to the extend of not even having furniture as in the case of his New York project. This emptiness, contrasted with the external image of the house, which is connotated as a warm and safe place for families, is critical to the commentary of Anarchitecture and its criticism of contemporary buildings as soulless.
Unfortunately, like all his other works, no physical remnant of "Conical Intersect (1975)" exists, with the only depictions left being the tape Matta-Clark filmed during its creation, and a single photograph from the interior. Nevertheless, both of these give a good approximation of the effect that seeing this project in person would have been.