Over the course of about ten years, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Matthew Barney met several times to discuss Barney’s past work, current projects and his plans for the future. The resulting collection of interviews provides a rare insight into how the work and working method of one of the most prominent artists of a generation has developed over time, and uncovers the ideas, influences and collaborations that lie behind his multi-layered and multimedia creative output. The conversation covers all of his major pieces to date, from the internationally acclaimed Cremaster cycle to the somewhat less well-known Drawing Restraint series, as well as looking at particular projects in more detail, such as the recent “Khu” performance and Barney’s participation in Il Tempo del Postino, curated by Obrist at the 2007 Manchester International Festival.
Published by Fondazione Merz/ hopefulmonster Editore. Edited by Olga Gambari. Text by Alberto Barbera, Guido Curto, Olga Gambari, Beatrice Merz. Interview by Arthur C. Danto, Richard Flood.
New York Times critic Michael Kimmelman has called Matthew Barney "the most important American artist of his generation." Most known for his epic film series Cremaster Cycle (1994-2002) and Drawing Restraint (2005), a feature film made with his partner, Björk, Barney's technically and conceptually fastidious work conflates various personal and universal mythologies into narratives that are famously difficult to unravel. This volume compiles work from Barney's solo exhibitions at Turin's Fondazione Merz and National Museum of Cinema, as well as coverage of the International Festival of Philosophy of Contemporary Art, a collaboration between the Fondazione Merz and the University of Turin for which Barney was featured in conversation with Richard Flood and Arthur C. Danto.
PUBLISHER Fondazione Merz/ hopefulmonster Editore
BOOK FORMAT Hardcover, 6 x 8.5 in. / 200 pgs / 50 color.
PUBLISHING STATUS Pub Date 9/30/2009 Active
DISTRIBUTION D.A.P. Exclusive Catalog: SPRING 2009 p. 78
PRODUCT DETAILS ISBN 9788877572356TRADE List Price: $45.00 CAD $60.00
AVAILABILITY Out of stock
STATUS: Out of stock
Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.
Published by Walther König, Köln. Text by Matthew Barney, Neville Wakefield.
Matthew Barney's Drawing Restraint series imagines mythic interactions and subtle energy currents that meld legend and technology in dark, non-allegorical fairytales. In the film Drawing Restraint 9, the tension is strung between creative discipline (restraint, orderliness, pattern) and protean creativity (oceanic chaos)--a theme that is symbolically enacted in the construction and transformation of a vast sculpture of liquid Vaseline called "The Field." Over the course of the film, "The Field" is molded, poured, bisected and re-formed on the deck of a whaling ship. These shifts in the sculpture's state are then echoed in the tale of The Guests, two visitors to the ship (played by Barney and Björk) who, locked in a lover's embrace and breathing through blowhole orifices in the back of their necks, cut away each other's feet and thighs with flensing knives to reveal nascent whale tails. In conjunction with the Serpentine Gallery's 2007 exhibition, this catalogue for Drawing Restraint 9 and the Drawing Restraint series to date features autonomous sketches, drawings, sculptures and photographs. It offers an assessment of the project's fusion of sculpture, architecture, music, computer-generated effects and prosthetics that draws from mythology, history, sports and biology to explore the interplay between polymorphous desire and applied order.
Published by Uplink. Essay by Itsuko Hasegawa. Introductions by Shin'Ichi Nakazawa and Luc Steels.
This newest installment in the Drawing Restraint series again offers a clear PVC cover designed by the artist, Matthew Barney, printed in special ink. It includes 120 color images from Barney's film work, as well as the studies that went into them. Three enlightening texts round out this compact publication: Luc Steels is a scientist specializing in artificial intelligence; Shin'Ichi Nakazawa is a theologist and folklorist; and Itsuko Hasegawa weighs in with a curatorial perspective.
PUBLISHER Uplink
BOOK FORMAT Paperback, 6.75 x 9.5 in. / 163 pgs / 145 color.
PUBLISHING STATUS Pub Date 8/15/2006 Active
DISTRIBUTION D.A.P. Exclusive Catalog: FALL 2006 p. 110
PRODUCT DETAILS ISBN 9784900728141TRADE List Price: $75.00 CAD $99.00
AVAILABILITY Out of stock
STATUS: Out of stock
Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.
Published by Walther König, Köln. Edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist. Essay by Francis Mckee.
This insightful book features a clear PVC cover designed by the artist, printed in silver ink. Barney's sometimes ominous and sometimes sexy black-and white work is highlighted by a 12-page high gloss full color insert--the centerfold, if you will.
Published by Guggenheim Museum Publications. Edited by Nancy Spector. Essays by Nancy Spector and Neville Wakefield.
The definitive user's guide and then some to Matthew Barney's epic five-part epic film series, The Cremaster Cycle is filled with hundreds of Barney's fantastical images and surveys the project, which uses the biological model of sexual difference as its conceptual departure point. Three essays by Barney experts articulate the series' diverse themes and explore the artist's innovative aesthetic vocabulary; interviews with key collaborators, a composer, costume designer, make-up artist, technicians and actors reveal his working process. A trailblazing essay by Curator of Contemporary Art Nancy Spector charts Barney's work from the 1990s to the present and provides critical insights into the aesthetic vocabulary of his five Cremaster films, while Neville Wakefield's “Cremaster Glossary” illuminates the films' most far-flung references with citations from sources as diverse as Freud's psychoanalytic studies, Mormon law and lore, and hardcore music fanzines. In addition to stills from the five films--including the final episode, Cremaster 3--the book features related sculptures, photographs, drawings and storyboards. For anyone intrigued by the Wagner of contemporary art, this is an atlas to his enticingly hypnotic worlds. Barney himself collaborated on all aspects of this extraordinary publication, including the selection of over 700 images, most of them never before published.
Published by Guggenheim Museum Publications. Essays by Nancy Spector and Neville Wakefield.
Now in Paperback The definitive user's guide and then some to Matthew Barney's epic five-part film series, The Cremaster Cycle is filled with hundreds of Barney's fantastical images and surveys the project, which uses the biological model of sexual difference as its conceptual departure point. Three essays by Barney experts articulate the series' diverse themes and explore the artist's innovative aesthetic vocabulary; interviews with key collaborators, a composer, costume designer, make-up artist, technicians, and actors reveal his working process. A trailblazing essay by Curator of Contemporary Art Nancy Spector charts Barney's work from the 1990s to the present and provides critical insights into the aesthetic vocabulary of his five Cremaster films, while Neville Wakefield's "Cremaster Glossary" illuminates the films' most far-flung references with citations from sources as diverse as Freud's psychoanalytic studies, Mormon law and lore, and hardcore music fanzines. In addition to stills from the five films--including the final episode, Cremaster 3--the book features related sculptures, photographs, drawings, and storyboards. For anyone intrigued by the Wagner of contemporary art, this is an atlas to his enticingly hypnotic worlds. Barney himself collaborated on all aspects of this extraordinary publication, including the selection of over 700 images, most of them never before published.
Published by Guggenheim Museum Publications. Artwork by Matthew Barney.
Cremaster 3, the last in Matthew Barney's epic five-part film project, is part zombie, part gangster film. Set in 1930s New York and Saratoga Springs as well as Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, the plot explores the Irish mob system, freemasonry, and Celtic lore as further symbols for the forces at play in Barney's mythological system. Named after the muscle that raises or lowers a man's testicles in response to temperature, the Cremaster series has featured Barney as a satyr, a magician, a ram, Harry Houdini, and even famous murderer Gary Gilmore, props made from tapioca, petroleum jelly, ice, and self-healing plastic, and settings as fantastic and desolate as the Isle of Man, an empty football stadium in Idaho, and a nearly empty opera house in Hungary. The films are slow-moving and weirdly hynotic, full of elaborate sexual and biological allusions, references to sports and fashion, and a bizarre mix of autobiography, history, and private symbolism that have earned him comparisons to Wagner. This book is the final of the five companion volumes published to coincide with the release of each of the Cremaster films. Each was designed in an original manner by the artist and features photographs and stills from the film it accompanies.
Published by Walker Art Center. Artwork by Matthew Barney. Text by Richard Flood.
The fourth installment of Barney's ongoing series of Cremaster "operas," Cremaster 2 is loosely based on the life of serial killer Gary Gilmore's fascination with his alleged maternal grandfather, Harry Houdini. "Barney is a talented young artist who creates a bizarre and elaborate universe with its own symbols, heroes, and rituals."--Roberta Smith, The New York Times.
PUBLISHER Walker Art Center
BOOK FORMAT Paperback, 11.5 x 9.5 in. / 112 pgs / 112 color
PUBLISHING STATUS Pub Date 10/2/1999 No longer our product
DISTRIBUTION D.A.P. Exclusive Catalog: SPRING 1999
PRODUCT DETAILS ISBN 9780935640649TRADE List Price: $45.00 CAD $55.00
Matthew Barney: Contemporary Mythologies
Matthew Barney: Drawing Restraint Vol. 5
Matthew Barney: Drawing Restraint Vol.2
Matthew Barney: Drawing Restraint Vol.1
Matthew Barney: The Cremaster Cycle
Matthew Barney: The Cremaster Cycle
Matthew Barney: Cremaster 3
Matthew Barney: Cremaster 2