In Might and June, Matthew Barney, the visionary artist behind the epic Tima Cycle movie collection (1994-2002) and River of Foundations (2014), will current afternoon Presenting his newest work “Secondary” at 4 p.m. Gladstone Gallery in New York; Sadie Coles Headquarters in London; regeneration challenge in Los Angeles; and Max Herzler Gallery in Paris.
1. Thick mucus
In his first solo exhibition in New York in 1991, on the age of 23, Barney confirmed a video during which he climbed the partitions and ceiling of the Gladstone Gallery, bare and sporting a harness (left). The video is proven alongside a walk-in cooler with an train bench forged in Vaseline. Since then, his works have been dripping with translucent liquid. Right now, Goo permeates luxurious vogue, from Balenciaga’s so-called slime-print hoodie (proper) to the slime that dripped from the ceiling at two Prada exhibits final yr (heart).
2. Male frontal nudity
Lengthy earlier than Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer (2023) (left) or some other well-known TV collection, Barney was fearlessly (some would possibly say gratuitously) breaking One of many final taboos in up to date tradition (proper).
3. Physique secretions
Barney might be the best residing artist of bodily fluids, whether or not urine, feces, semen, blood or breast milk. His 311-minute movie “Important River” (left) Very Tailored from Norman Mailer’s 1983 novel Historical Evenings, it begins with Barney rising from a river of excrement, coming into Mailer’s residence, and rising from a bathroom Taking human excrement, wrapping it in gold foil, and putting it again instead, conjuring up the spirit of the pharaoh who sodomized him.Barney’s anatomical provocations enormously influenced a youthful era of artists, together with dash snow (He masturbates in a few of his works) (centre) and foreshadows the river of sewage in Bong Joon-ho’s 2019 movie Parasite (proper) and the ingesting of semen-filled bathwater in 2023’s Salt Burn .
4. Artwork in regards to the artist couple
Singer Björk (centre) not solely composed the soundtrack for Barney’s movie Drawing Restraint 9 (2005) – during which the 2 carry out a Japanese tea ceremony on a whaling ship stuffed with molten Vaseline – however her lyrics Their tales had been recorded. Vulnicura,” during which she declares: “I am bored of your obsession with the tip of the world.” Years earlier than Beyoncé’s 2016 Lemonade (proper) or Taylor Swift’s breakup ballad (left), Bjork and Barney have expanded the methods during which public figures can combine their private lives into their artwork.
Barney favored elaborate costumes that questioned conventional gender roles (wonderful freemasons, tap-dancing satyrs), and he wore skirts and night robes each out and in of artwork, as he did on the opening of the 1993 Whitney Biennial (left) . Barney walks so Harry Kinds and Timothée Chalamet (proper) can run.
