Tag Archives: matthew barney

SUBLIMING VESSEL: THE DRAWINGS OF MATTHEW BARNEY

Matthew Barney, “Khu: Djed,” brush and ink, gold leaf, iron, and lapis lazuli on black paper in polyethylene frame, 2011 (copyright Matthew Barney / courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels)

Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Ave. at 36th St.
Daily through September 8, $12-$18 (free Fridays from 7:00 to 9:00)
212-685-0008
www.themorgan.org
www.drawingrestraint.net

No, the banner outside the Morgan Library proclaiming that its Matthew Barney exhibition ends September 2 is not a restraint to stop drawing visitors to the show, which actually closes September 8. For the first-ever museum retrospective of his drawings, the California-born multidisciplinary artist chose two very specific venues, both of which had to be libraries: the Morgan first, followed by the Bibliothèque nationale de France. For “Subliming Vessel: The Drawings of Matthew Barney,” the Park Slope-based former college quarterback and premed student combines pieces from the institutions’ holdings with his own works and research paraphernalia to lend new insight into his creative process and influences. Since the late 1980s, Barney has been making drawings that relate to his films, installations, and live performance events, the works serving not only as rehearsals or storyboards but also acting as part of the central focus of the narrative as well as continuing into the aftermath. “I would describe a system that I’ve always visualized as an inverted pyramid, where the narrative is at the widest point, at the top of the structure,” Barney tells artist Isabelle Dervaux in an interview in the exhibition catalog. “The narrative in most projects is film-based, video-based, in some projects performance-based, but it’s the most developed aspect of the project. From there a process of distillation happens. Sculpture comes next in the sense that sculpture often tries to articulate a relationship in the narrative between characters or between places. Drawing is at the bottom of this structure and is the most distilled aspect of it. In that way it’s one of the more rewarding — possible the most rewarding part of the process, to get down to the purest form, the most distilled form of the narrative.”

Matthew Barney, “Cremaster 4: Manx Manual,” graphite, lacquer, and petroleum jelly on paper in cast epoxy, prosthetic plastic, and Manx tartan, 1994-95 (copyright Matthew Barney / courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels)

Hanging on the walls are fully realized ink and pencil drawings, several incorporating one of Barney’s signature materials, petroleum jelly, in self-lubricating plastic frames, that relate to such ambitious projects as the five-part Cremaster Cycle film series, which explores the ascending and descending muscle that determines gender; his Drawing Restraint performances, in which he creates art while limiting his physical mobility, one of which was recently held at the Morgan (the result of which can be seen in the Clare Eddy Thaw Gallery); the OTTOshaft trilogy, in which Barney uses Oakland Raiders center Jim Otto, who wore number 00, as the impetus for an exploration of athletic endurance that also involves Harry Houdini and the Hubris Pill; De Lama Lâmina (“From Mud, a Blade”), a collaboration with musician Arto Lindsay about environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill; and River of Fundament, inspired by Norman Mailer’s Ancient Evening, which delves into the Egyptian belief of the soul’s death and rebirth as experienced by a 1967 Chrysler Crown Imperial. Barney’s most accomplished drawings are those done in red, comprising the “River Rouge” series, while his pieces on black are the most mysterious, the details visible from only certain angles.

Matthew Barney, “River Rouge: Crown Victoria,” ink on paper in painted steel frame, 2011 (copyright Matthew Barney / Courtesy Gladstone Gallery)

The show also includes vitrines filled with objects chosen specifically by Barney from his own collection as well as the Morgan’s that relate to his work, from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass to a Diane Arbus photo of Mailer, from a third-century papyrus copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead to a page from a thirteenth-century book depicting sailors on the back of a whale, from the Goya drawing “Locura (Madness)” to Joseph Smith’s The Book of Mormon. In addition to adding insight into Barney’s ever-evolving narrative, they reveal his endless fascination with the human body. “The first pieces I made of Vaseline were about wanting to moisten something,” he told Gerald Matt in a 2008 interview. (The quote is included in the wall text for the 1991 drawing “Delay of Game [manual] C.”) “I was thinking of all things that I was making at the time as literally extensions of my body somehow, and I wanted these objects to feel like they had just come out of me or could be put into me.” In many ways, that gets to the heart of Barney’s intense creative process and intriguing, confusing, highly abstract, and extremely stylized output. While Barney might often physically restrain himself, the worlds he has brought to life, which have oozed out of him and into him, on paper, on film, and in live performance, seem to have no limits.

EXPO 1: NEW YORK

“ProBio” looks at the future with “dark optimism” at MoMA PS 1 (photo by Matthew Septimus)

MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Ave. at 46th Ave.
Thursday – Monday through September 2, suggested admission $10 (free with paid MoMA ticket within fourteen days), 12 noon – 6:00
718-784-2084
www.momaps1.org

The presentation of MoMA PS1’s summer exhibition, “Expo 1: New York,” smartly echoes how climate change, technology, and evolution have impacted the progression and devastation of the natural world in the twenty-first century. The show began in May with a series of modules in various locations, with some of those individual parts, including “Rain Room” at MoMA, Olafur Eliasson’s Icelandic glacier installation “Your waste of time” at PS1, Adrián Villar Rojas’s “La inocencia de los animales (The innocence of animals)” PS 1 lecture hall, and the VW Dome on Rockaway Beach, now having gone extinct, disappearing like the melting ice caps. But the show, which promotes Triple Canopy’s concept of a “dark optimism” for the future of humanity and the planet, still has several worthwhile displays at its primary hub at PS 1, examining its mission statement that “we live in a time that is marked by both the seeming end of the world and its beginning, being on the brink of apocalypse but also at the onset of unprecedented technological transformation.” Curators Klaus Biesenbach and Hans Ulrich Obrist reach back fifteen years for Meg Webster’s “Pool,” which PS 1 founder Alanna Heiss originally commissioned in 1998, a swampy water environment that could not exist without the coming together of natural materials and man-made electronic elements. Downstairs in the basement, the Cinema is offering up recent film, video games, and online content from the YouTube generation; the upcoming schedule includes the video games “Journey” and “Proteus,” Sterling Ruby’s Transient Trilogy, Althea Thauberger’s Northern, and Khavn de la Cruz’s Kalakala and Mondomanila or: How I Fixed My Hair After a Rather Long Journey, with the director on hand to discuss his work (and provide live piano accompaniment for the former). Organized by Josh Kline, “ProBio” takes a futuristic look at the intersection of technology and the human body, with intriguing cutting-edge works by such artists as Alisa Baremboym, Antoine Catala, Carissa Rodriguez, and Georgia Sagri; watch out for those Roomba-like robots scouring the floor. One offsite project still remains, Marie Lorenz’s “The Tide and Current Taxi,” which visitors can hail in New York harbor. As always at MoMA PS 1, the many rooms hold little surprises, so be sure to explore so you can also catch pieces by Charles Ray, Matthew Barney, Zoe Leonard, Steve McQueen, Mark Dion, Chris Burden, Pierre Huyghe, Agnes Denes, Ugo Rondinone, and others. And for the final week of “Expo 1,” a77’s communal courtyard installation “Colony” is taken over by Glenn O’Brien, who will be hosting “TV Party Goes to Camp.”

NYC 1993: EXPERIMENTAL JET SET, TRASH AND NO STAR

Charles Ray, “Family Romance,” painted fiberglass and synthetic hair, 1992-93 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

New Museum of Contemporary Art
235 Bowery at Prince St.
Friday – Sunday through May 26, $12-$16
212-219-1222
www.newmuseum.org

Where were you in 1993? Thirty years ago, we were toiling for the Evil Empire, hoping that the Rangers would win their first Stanley Cup in more than half a century, seeing Springsteen on tour without the E Street Band, and looking for a new apartment after having just gotten married. But in general, 1993 found itself in the midst of a rather nondescript decade highlighted by the tempestuous presidency of William Jefferson Clinton and perhaps best exemplified by the Y2K nonproblem. The New Museum turns its attention on that one specific year in “NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star.” Taking its name from the 1994 album by legendary New York underground giants Sonic Youth (the album was recorded in 1993), the show gathers together works created around 1993 by a rather distinguished group of artists, including Matthew Barney, Larry Clark, Martin Kippenberger, John Currin, Nan Goldin, David Hammons, Todd Haynes, Derek Jarman, Mike Kelley, Annie Leibovitz, Elizabeth Peyton, Cindy Sherman, Wolfgang Tillmans, Gillian Wearing, and Hannah Wilke. There are many stand-out pieces, from Robert Gober’s “Prison Window,” wonderfully placed near an “Exit” sign, Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled (Couple),” a string of lightbulbs dangling from the ceiling, and Lorna Simpson’s “7 Mouths,” consisting of close-ups of seven mouths on photo-linen panels, to Devon Dikeou’s lobby directory boards, Charles Ray’s “Family Romance,” depicting a naked fiberglass family of four, all the same height, and Paul McCarthy’s “Cultural Gothic,” in which a man seems proud that his son is doing a goat. And visitors get to walk on Rudolf Stingel’s carpet on the fourth floor and in the elevators.

Pepón Osorio, “The Scene of the Crime (Whose Crime?),” detail, mixed mediums, 1993 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

However, the show is not quite the time capsule curators Massimiliano Gioni and Gary Carrion-Murayari sought; not all of the work is actually from 1993 (Sarah Lucas’s simple but elegant 1991 “The Old Couple,” Jack Pierson’s 1991 four-letter, multicolored “STAY,” Kiki Smith’s 1992 life-size bronze “Virgin Mary,” Andres Serrano’s 1992 prints from the Morgue series), while others deal with events that occurred prior to 1993 (Lutz Bacher’s “My Penis,” in which William Kennedy Smith repeats that phrase over and over in a six-and-a-half-minute video loop; Glenn Ligon’s “Red Portfolio” references a 1989 direct-mail letter from Pat Robertson). Some of the older works, especially those not by New Yorkers, might have first been shown in New York in 1993, including at the Whitney Biennial, but it doesn’t feel all of a piece, the specific groupings making more sense to art insiders than to the general public. Still, “NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star” is a fun sampling of the art of the early ’90s, even if it doesn’t make any grand social, cultural, or political statements.

MATTHEW BARNEY: DJED

Matthew Barney, “Secret Name,” cast lead, polycaprolactone, copper, and zinc, 2008/2011 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Gladstone Gallery
530 West 21st St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 22, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-206-9300
www.gladstonegallery.com

Since 2007, multimedia installation artist, filmmaker, and former college football hero Matthew Barney has been developing Ancient Evenings, an ambitious collaboration with Jonathan Bepler inspired by Norman Mailer’s 1983 novel. Incorporating American automobiles, mythical figures, and such settings as a Chrysler dealership, a Detroit sewage treatment plant, and a glue factory, the rather unusual opera includes the pouring of hot metal onto the stage. The resulting sculptures, along with lovely, mysterious ink-on-paper “River Rouge” drawings and other related works, are on view in “DJED” at the Gladstone Gallery in Chelsea through October 22. The San Francisco-born Cremaster maestro has given the pieces such curious titles as “Canoptic Chest,” “Secret Name,” and “Sacrificial Anode,” inviting visitors to venture into his surreal, engaging landscape, some of which Cremaster fans will get an extra kick out of as they recognize the references. The display is on two floors, so be sure to go upstairs to experience the complete exhibition.

THE CREMASTER CYCLE

Marti Domination squeezes into a tight space in CREMASTER 1

THE CREMASTER CYCLE (Matthew Barney, 1994-2002)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at Third St.
Wednesday, May 19 – Thursday, June 3
Tickets: $12.50 per program, series pass $30
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.cremaster.net

Matthew Barney’s CREMASTER CYCLE is so much more than five essentially incomprehensible films totaling seven hours made over the course of eight years out of chronological order; it’s a state of mind, a whole other level of consciousness. The complete series, which is shown at art houses and museums and will never, according to Barney, be available on DVD or any other salable personal format, hasn’t been seen in its entirety in New York City since October 2003, when it screened at Anthology Film Archives shortly after the exciting Matthew Barney survey held at the Guggenheim earlier that year. Ostensibly following the ascension and descension of the cremaster muscle, which raises and lowers the testicles as sexual differentiation takes place inside the human body, the films feature strange characters in odd metaphorical situations that are rarely immediately apparent; we found ourselves continually referring to Cremaster Fanatic, which offers excellent meta-descriptions of each work, breaking down each bizarre symbol. But that doesn’t mean the narrative is impossible to follow or overly convoluted; instead, part of the fun is trying to figure out just what the heck is going on.

Artist Richard Serra plays the Architect in CREMASTER 3

In CREMASTER 1 (1995), the Goodyear blimp hovers over a stadium where the young Barney, a former quarterback, played football. Bright colors dominate as four flight attendants peer out the window, unaware that beneath a table topped with a Vaseline centerpiece a platinum blonde (Marti Domination) is stealing grapes. A beautifully choreographed Busby Berkeley-like dance ensues. In CREMASTER 2 (1999), Barney plays Gary Gilmore, re-creating the murder of Mormon gas station employee Max Jensen. There’s also a séance led by Baby Fay La Foe, graphic sex, a queen bee and her drones, the Bonneville Salt Flats, the Mormon Tabernacle, and Norman Mailer, who wrote THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG about Gilmore, as Harry Houdini at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. At three hours, CREMASTER 3 (2002) is the longest and easiest to follow of the series. It details the heated 1929 fight between the Chrysler Building and the Bank of Manhattan (40 Wall St.) to be the tallest structure in New York, framed by the Irish legend of Fionn and Fingal and the Giant’s Causeway. The cast features Barney as the Entered Apprentice climbing up the Guggenheim’s spiral walls, conceptual artist Richard Serra as the Architect (Hiram Abiff) and himself (melting Vaseline that drips down the length of the museum), amputee Aimee Mullins as the Entered Novitiate, singer Paul Brady as the Cloud Club maitre d’ serving a small group of gangster-like Masons, Terry Gillespie as a bartender with a bit of a Guinness problem (in the series’ funniest scene), and punk bands Agnostic Front and Murphy’s Law engaged in a musical battle. In CREMASTER 4 (1994), the Ascending and Descending motorcycle sidecar teams race for the Tourist Trophy on the Isle of Man while the Loughton Candidate (Barney) carefully combs his hair (he has four potential horns on his head) and tap-dances as a trio of faeries bandy about. And in CREMASTER 5 (1997), the Queen of Chain (Ursula Andress) belts out a Hungarian opera above the Gellert Baths, where Fudor Sprites swim and Jacobin pigeons are prepared for a special purpose, with Barney appearing as the Queen’s Diva, the Queen’s Magician, and the Queen’s Giant.

Matthew Barney plays multiple roles in his experimental epic THE CREMASTER CYCLE

Watching THE CREMASTER CYCLE is an unforgettable experience, a thrilling foray into experimental film at its finest. It’s both mind-blowing and infuriatingly confusing, stunningly gorgeous and utterly ridiculous. Everything in it is laden with meaning, though you’ll be hard-pressed to know what much of it is about. And there are more references to male genitalia than in any teen sex comedy ever made. The films will screen for two weeks at the IFC Center in three programs, CREMASTER 1&2, CREMASTER 3, and CREMASTER 4&5. Barney will be at the 7:00 screening of CREMASTER 4&5 and the 9:25 showing of CREMASTER 1&2 on May 20. THE CREMASTER CYCLE is more than just a cinematic art project; it’s an event that has to be seen to be believed.