Every generation has a few artists who make it big…Really big.
Matthew Barney looms oh-so-large in the fields of drawing, performance, photography, sculpture, and video. In the 1990s, he rocked the world – and the Guggenheim — with The Cremaster Cycle, a five-film, avant-garde, simply epic series. Then, the 1996 Hugo Boss Prize winner lived even larger with Drawing Restraint 9 (2005), River of Fundament (2014), Redoubt (2018), and Catasterism (2021-2022).
Currently, Barney, who likes to explore biology, geology, and mythology, is showing his latest five-channel video installation, Secondary, at his studio at 4-40 44th Dr. by the East River in Long Island City. (It’s on display until June 25.)
That’s right. It’s in Queens!
Secondary was filmed in the studio, which is actually a central character in the piece’s structure, which mixes two narratives. The first one involves violence and spectacle in football (especially) and American culture (more broadly). While excelling at the sport during his youth, Barney was forever changed by an NFL game on Aug. 12, 1978, when Oakland Raiders defensive back Jack Tatum hit New England Patriots wide receiver Darryl Stingley so hard that Stingley was paralyzed for life.
The show’s other narrative is a choreography enhanced by substances Barney uses to make sculpture (lead, aluminum, terracotta, plastic) in various states of liquidity. The performers — who consist of Barney and professional dancers cast as athletes of various ages — generate and manipulate these materials in the video.
A six-foot-deep trench in the studio’s concrete floor also plays a primary role in Secondary. The hole features a shattered ceramic pipe that drains into the East River. As the tide rises, the trench floods with water. Slow-moving danger in a broken structure.
No admission price is listed on the exhibition’s website. Gallery hours are Wednesday to Friday, noon to 8 pm, and Saturday and Sunday, 11 am to 4 pm.
Born in San Francisco in 1967, Barney studied at Yale University, where his first art works displayed at the Payne Whitney Gymnasium on campus. After graduating in 1989, he moved to New York to launch his career. He’s had his studio in Long Island City since 2014.
Image: Secondary