Matthew Barney facts for kids
Matthew Barney (born March 25, 1967) is an American artist and film director. He creates art using sculpture, film, photography, and drawing. His artworks often explore connections between geography, biology, geology, and mythology. He also looks at themes like the human body and different kinds of conflict.
His early art pieces were sculptures combined with live performances and videos. From 1994 to 2002, he made The Cremaster Cycle, a series of five films. A writer for The Guardian newspaper called this series "one of the most imaginative and brilliant achievements in the history of avant-garde cinema," which means very new and experimental movies. Matthew Barney is also known for his projects Drawing Restraint 9 (2005), River of Fundament (2014), and Redoubt (2018).
Quick facts for kids
Matthew Barney
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Barney in 2007
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| Born | March 25, 1967 San Francisco, California, U.S.
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| Nationality | American |
| Education | Yale University |
| Known for | Film, video art, sculpture, photography |
| Partner(s) | Mary Farley (1993–2002) Björk (2002–2013) |
| Awards | Hugo Boss Prize |
Contents
Life and Career of Matthew Barney
Matthew Barney was born on March 25, 1967, in San Francisco, California. He lived there until he was seven years old. From 1973 to 1985, he lived in Boise, Idaho, where his father worked at Boise State University. Matthew went to elementary, middle, and high school in Boise.
His parents later divorced, and his mother, who was an abstract painter, moved to New York City. Matthew often visited her there, and that's where he first learned about the art world. In 1985, Yale University recruited him to play football. He planned to study medicine but also wanted to study art. He graduated from Yale in 1989.
His very first artworks were created at Yale and shown at the university's Payne Whitney Gymnasium. In the 1990s, Barney moved to New York. He worked as a catalog model, which helped him pay for his early art projects. In 2002, he had a daughter with the singer Björk, who was his partner at the time. They lived together in Brooklyn Heights. By September 2013, Matthew Barney and Björk were no longer a couple. Björk later shared her feelings about the breakup in her 2015 music album Vulnicura.
As of 2014, Matthew Barney has a studio in Long Island City, Queens. His art is represented by the Gladstone Gallery.
Matthew Barney's Art Projects
The Drawing Restraint Series (1987–Present)
The Drawing Restraint series started in 1987. These projects are like experiments where Barney explores how growth can happen through challenges. It's similar to how a muscle gets stronger when it works against resistance. In these artworks, he literally restricts his body while trying to make a drawing.
The early Drawing Restraint 1–6 (1987–89) were documented using video and photos. Drawing Restraint 7 began to include stories and characters. This led to a three-channel video and new drawings and photographs. For this work, Barney won the Aperto Prize at the 1993 Venice Biennale, a famous art exhibition.
Drawing Restraint 8 was a series of ten display cases with drawings. It was shown at the 2003 Venice Biennale and hinted at the story that would be told in Drawing Restraint 9 (2005). Drawing Restraint 9 was a big project that included a full-length film with music by Björk. It also featured large sculptures, photographs, and drawings. This project explored themes like the Shinto religion, the tea ceremony, and the history of whaling.
In 2006, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art held a large exhibition of Barney's work, including pieces from Drawing Restraint 9. This show featured over 150 different artworks. Drawing Restraint 10 – 16 (2005–07) were performances created for specific locations, similar to his earlier works at Yale.
Drawing Restraint 17 and 18 were performed in Basel, Switzerland, in 2010. This was part of an exhibition that looked at the entire Drawing Restraint series up to that point.
Drawing Restraint 19 uses a skateboard as a drawing tool. A block of graphite (like pencil lead) is attached to the front of the skateboard. A skateboarder performs a "nose manual" (balancing on the front wheels) across a smooth surface. This leaves a drawn graphite line behind. This piece was part of an art show to raise money for a skate park in Detroit, Michigan. Skateboarder Lance Mountain performed the drawing, and it was photographed and published in a magazine.
The Cremaster Cycle (1994–2002)
Matthew Barney's major Cremaster cycle (1994–2002) is a group of five feature-length films. These films explore how things are created and developed. The project also includes photographs, drawings, sculptures, and art installations that go along with each film.
The films use ideas from biology, mythology, and geology to explore how different forms come into being. The photographs often look like classic portraits. Barney's drawings, made with graphite and petroleum jelly, show important ideas from the project. Jonathan Bepler, Barney's long-time helper, created the music for the films.
River of Fundament (2006–2014)
River of Fundament is an opera with three acts. It is loosely based on Norman Mailer’s novel Ancient Evenings. Matthew Barney worked with composer Jonathan Bepler on this project. It combines traditional filmmaking with filmed performances, sculptures, and opera. The film retells Mailer’s story about Egyptian gods and the seven stages of reincarnation. It also connects this story with the rise and fall of the American car industry.
In this film, Barney used a 1967 Chrysler Imperial car as a main symbol, similar to how he used the human body in earlier works. This car was also important in his film Cremaster 3. A key scene in the film is an artistic version of Mailer’s funeral gathering. It takes place in a copy of the author’s apartment in Brooklyn Heights and features actors like Maggie Gyllenhaal and Paul Giamatti.
Redoubt (2018–2021)
Barney started making a new two-hour film called Redoubt in 2017. It was first shown in March 2019. The film is set in the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho, United States. It uses different layers of myths, including the story of Diana and Actaeon. It also refers to the reintroduction of wolves into the Sawtooth Mountains and the art of working with metals. The film explores humanity's place in the natural world.
The Yale University Art Gallery showed Redoubt on March 1, 2019. Along with the film, there was an exhibition of large bronze and brass sculptures and metal engravings inspired by the movie. The exhibition later traveled to Beijing and London.
Live Performances
Matthew Barney has also created live performances for audiences. His pieces REN and Guardian of the Veil use ideas from the Cremaster Cycle. They explore Egyptian symbols, inspired by Norman Mailer's novel Ancient Evenings. Guardian of the Veil happened on July 12, 2007, at the Manchester International Festival in England. REN took place on May 18, 2008, in Los Angeles. His performance on October 2, 2010, called KHU, was the second part of a seven-part series. It was also inspired by Ancient Evenings and took place in Detroit.
In June 2009, Barney worked with artist Elizabeth Peyton on a performance called Blood of Two. This was for the opening of the Deste Foundation's art space on the Greek island of Hydra. During the two-hour performance, divers brought a display case with drawings from a nearby cove where it had been underwater for months. Fishermen carried the case up a winding set of stairs. At one point, a shark was placed on the case. The fishermen then carried the case and the shark to the gallery, with onlookers and a group of goats following. At the gallery, the case was opened, water poured out, and the drawings were revealed.
Public Art Projects
In June 2017, Matthew Barney, along with art curator Brandon Stosuy and other artists, put up the Remains Board on his studio in Long Island City. People sometimes called it the "Trump countdown clock." This board is a large digital clock that can be seen from the United Nations and midtown Manhattan. It counted down the days, hours, and minutes left in the U.S. president Donald Trump's first term.
The Remains Board was first lit up during a long performance by comedian Josh Fadem. On January 20, 2021, at 12:00 p.m., Haela Hunt-Hendrix from the band Liturgy played a guitar solo under the Remains Board as the clock reached zero.
Exhibitions of Matthew Barney's Work
After being part of two group shows in New York in 1990, Matthew Barney had his first solo art show in 1991 at the Barbara Gladstone Gallery. The New York Times called it "an extraordinary first show." That same year, when he was only twenty-four, he had a solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
The Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Netherlands, organized a solo exhibition of his work that traveled around Europe in 1995 and 1996. Barney's art was then included in many international exhibitions. These included documenta 9 in Kassel, Germany (1992), and the 1993 and 1995 Biennial exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. He also participated in Aperto ’93 at the 48th Venice Biennale, where he won the Europa 2000 Prize. For the 2000/2001 season, Barney designed a large picture for the Vienna State Opera as part of an exhibition series.
"Matthew Barney: The Cremaster Cycle," an exhibition of artwork from the entire cycle, was organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. It first opened at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany, in June 2002. It then traveled to the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
A large exhibition of the entire “Drawing Restraint” series was organized by the 21st Century Museum for Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan, in 2005. This show traveled to several other museums, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Serpentine Gallery in London.
Barney has also had major solo exhibitions at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo, Norway (2003), and the Living Art Museum in Reykjavik, Iceland (2003). His work has been part of important group exhibitions, such as "Moving Pictures" at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2002) and the Venice Biennale (2003).
In 2013, the Morgan Library & Museum held “Subliming Vessel: The Drawings of Matthew Barney.” This was the first museum show focused only on his drawings. It later traveled to Paris. In 2014, Barney showed "River of Fundament" at Haus der Kunst in Munich, Germany. This exhibition then traveled to Australia and Los Angeles. "River of Fundament" was considered his biggest film project since the Cremaster Cycle. In 2019, the Yale University Art Gallery showed "Matthew Barney: Redoubt," which was his first solo museum exhibition in the U.S. since 2015–16.
Awards and Prizes
- Europa 2000 Prize, Aperto '93, 45th Venice Biennale, 1993.
- Hugo Boss Prize, Guggenheim Museum, 1996.
- James D. Phelan Art Award in Video, Bay Area Video Coalition, San Francisco Foundation, 1999.
- Glen Dimplex Award, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2002.
- Kaiser Ring Award, Museum für moderne Kunst, Goslar, Germany, 2007.
- Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award, 54th San Francisco International Film Festival, 2011.
See also
In Spanish: Matthew Barney para niños
