Matthew Barney

Matthew Barney

Matthew Barney - Galerie Max Hetzler Selected Works

Matthew Barney (b. 1967) is known for his innovative and broad-ranging practice encompassing film, performance, sculpture, photography and drawing. Celebrated for his feature-length cinematic work, including the seminal Cremaster Cycle (1994–2002), River of Fundament (2014) and Redoubt (2019), the artist creates fantastical universes which challenge the limits and politics of gender, sexuality and codified beliefs.

Describing himself primarily as a sculptor, Barney works with materials stretching from petroleum jelly to bronze, creating objects and installations that are intrinsically linked to his cinematic world. Barney’s drawings mark both the beginning and end of his filmic projects, existing as preparatory sketches and as reflective recollections of internal states. The closely interrelated elements of his oeuvre form the parts of a mythological Gesamtkunstwerk, addressing questions of life and death, the natural world and industrial transformation, the cosmic and terrestrial.

‘Over the last twenty-seven years Matthew Barney has produced some of the most accomplished, demanding, and distinctive bodies of work in contemporary art. A leading artist of his generation, he is a visionary figure whose complex and radical forms have generated an entirely new artistic vocabulary that is as unique as it is protean. At the root of his provocative art is an examination of physical and biological systems as a portal to the psychic, symbolic, mythological, occult, and archetypal dimensions of human experience and consciousness.’

O. Enwezor, ‘Portals and Processions: Matthew Barney’s River of Fundament’, in Matthew Barney: River of Fundament, exh. cat., Haus der Kunst, Munich; New York: Skira Rizzoli, 2014, p. 232

Image: Orange Lupine, 2021, graphite and gouache on paper in high-density polyethylene frame, 33 x 38.1 x 3.2 cm.; 13 x 15 x 1 1/4 in.

Selected Works

Elk Creek Burn, 2018

DRAWING RESTRAINT 9: Occidental Guest (bride), 2005

CREMASTER 5, 1997
View All

Solo Exhibitions

Matthew Barney - Galerie Max Hetzler

After Ruby Ridge

Bleibtreustraße 45, Berlin

14 September – 23 December 2021

Selected Institutional Exhibitions

Matthew Barney

Special Exhibition: Matthew Barney

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

21 May – 11 September 2022
Matthew Barney

Redoubt

Hayward Gallery, London

19 May – 25 July 2021
Matthew Barney

Redoubt

UCCA Beijing, Beijing

28 September 2019 – 12 January 2020
Matthew Barney

Redoubt

Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven

1 March – 16 June 2019
Matthew Barney

Bildungsroman

Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo

26 February – 15 May 2016
Matthew Barney

RIVER OF FUNDAMENT

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

13 September 2015 – 18 January 2016
Matthew Barney

River of Fundament

Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart

22 November 2014 – 13 April 2015
Matthew Barney

Matthew Barney

Sammlung Goetz, Munich

5 November 2007 – 29 March 2008
Matthew Barney

Drawing Restraint

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), San Francisco

23 June – 17 September 2006

Biography

Show Vita
Show Selected Bibliography

Videos

Adam Pendleton

River of Fundament

Matthew Barney, MOCA Director Philippe Vergne, and MOCA Assistant Curator Lanka Tattersall discuss the narrative and formal system embodied in Matthew Barney: RIVER OF FUNDAMENT

7 November 2015
Adam Pendleton

Matthew Barney

discusses the origins of his series 'DRAWING RESTRAINT'; Courtesy of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

13 May 2010
Adam Pendleton

Matthew Barney

discusses using plastics and petroleum jelly as materials in his series 'DRAWING RESTRAINT'; Courtesy of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

13 May 2010

Publications

Matthew Barney, Redoubt - Galerie Max Hetzler

Matthew Barney, Redoubt

Film Poster
2021

€ 20.00

Matthew Barney, After Ruby Ridge - Galerie Max Hetzler

Matthew Barney, After Ruby Ridge

Exhibition Poster
2021

€ 20.00

Matthew Barney: From Mud, A Blade, 2006. Edition No. 37 - Galerie Max Hetzler

Matthew Barney: From Mud, A Blade, 2006. Edition No. 37

Matthew Barney: From Mud, A Blade, 2006. Edition No. 37
Edition of 100

€ 60.00

Selected Press

BLAU International October 2021

Los Angeles Times January 2020

The Art Newspaper November 2019

Artforum March 2019

The Guardian June 2014

Modern Painters April 2014

The Paris Review February 2014

032c Summer 2010

Kaiserring Publications September 2007

ARTnews June 2006

The Brooklyn Rail 2003

The New York Times Magazine October 1999

Parkett 1995

News

Matthew Barney et al.

Prima Materia: The Periodic Table in Contemporary Art (group show)
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Connecticut
5 February – 27 August 2023

Bayhorse, 2018, by Matthew Barney, will be included in the group exhibition Prima Materia: The Periodic Table in Contemporary Art. Linking individual works of art with an element from the periodic table which each work incorporates, the exhibition encourages audiences to consider how artists use ...
Matthew Barney

Matthew Barney

Special Exhibition: Matthew Barney (solo show)
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
21 May – 11 September 2022

This exhibition will focus on the theme of the film Drawing Restraint 9 (2005) by Matthew Barney, who has developed the theme of Japanese culture as represented by the practices of whaling and the tea ceremony using a variety of media including film, sculpture, installation, and photography. Taking ...
Matthew Barney

Matthew Barney, Ida Ekblad, Julian Schnabel, Thomas Struth et al.

Solidarity Prints for Artists at Risk

70 artists, including Matthew Barney, Ida Ekblad, Julian Schnabel and Thomas Struth, have come together in a call to support the NGO Artists at Risk. Each artist has donated a print to be offered in an open edition. All sale proceeds will help artists who are impacted by the war in Ukraine to gain ...
Matthew Barney, Ida Ekblad, Julian Schnabel, Thomas Struth

Matthew Barney et al.

Future Bodies from a Recent Past – Sculpture, Technology, and the Body since the 1950s (group show)
Museum Brandhorst, Munich
2 June 2022 – 15 January 2023

Work by Matthew Barney is included in the group exhibition Future Bodies from a Recent Past – Sculpture, Technology, and the Body since the 1950s, which will be on view at the Museum Branhorst in Munich from 2 June 2022 until 15 January 2023.

This exhibition brings to life a hitherto ...

Matthew Barney et al.

The Howard and Judie Ganek Collection (group show)
Norton Museum, West Palm Beach
5 February – 25 September 2022

Matthew Barney’s work Cremaster 1: Green Lounge Manual: A diptych from 1995 is included in the group exhibition The Howard and Judie Ganek Collection, on view at the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach until 25 September 2022.

Norton Museum