Barney combines his athletic qualities with his aesthetic sensibility. His work on the emblematic figures of Jim Otto, an American football hero who played for fifteen years with two plastic kneecaps, and Harry Houdini, the famous magician and escape artist, reveal a highly elaborated imaginary world, which has no equivalent in contemporary art. Unlike his forerunners, often seeking Truth in art, Barney elaborates the theater of a strange and complex mythology, exploiting new ways of unifying different kinds of space, whether geographic, architectural, sculptural, virtual, or televisual: the space of gesture, of the body as it is known to biology and fantasy.
Exhibition overview
The Fondation Cartier presents Barney’s first exhibition in Europe. The photographs, drawings and sculptures in this exhibition are directly inspired by his latest video work, Cremaster 4, created in 1994 and co-produced by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Artangel in London, and the Barbara Galdstone Gallery in New York.
Artists and contributors of the exhibition:
- Matthew Barney
The exhibition in detail
Image gallery
