Art critic Lane Relyea concluded that "Odds are Barney's never met a boundary he didn't want to violate besides suspending, contorting, and poking himself, he's often shown crossdressing as well". Other critics recognized the influence of boundary-pushing Performance artists like Vito Acconci and Chris Burden. The New York Times referred to it as "an extraordinary first show", for which visitors were seen lining up around the block. Not unsurprisingly, Barney's show met with mixed reviews. ![]() The show featured sculptures (of athletic equipment like dumbbells and blocking tackles cast in wax, petroleum jelly, and tapioca), and various videos featuring Barney engaging in such performative actions as "pumping a hydraulic jack into his own abdomen," " his oral and anal cavities as pearls emerge from his mouth and rectum", and "being repeatedly attacked by a menacing football player". As art critic Jerry Saltz recalls, the debut show presented Barney "in embryonic form yet with all the aspects of his art foreshadowed". He remarked that ''When I was modeling, I found it interesting that you could step outside yourself and let yourself be used as a coat hanger or puppet, especially in the performance sense: to let your body be a tool, to leave the body in the work and not really to occupy your body when you are performing''.īarney participated in several group shows at the Althea Viafora gallery in New York in 1990, and then presented his first solo show in 1991 at the Barbara Gladstone Gallery. Crew), and he used the money he earned from modeling to finance his artistic pursuits. Once in New York, Barney was recruited as a catalog model by the Click modeling agency (whose clients included Ralph Lauren and J. He then moved to a studio on Leroy Street in Greenwich Village, which he shared with sculptor Michael Rees (whom he had befriended while at Yale). With this work, he sought to explore concepts of physicality, fetishization, and endurance, in both sports and artistic practice.Īfter graduating from Yale in 1989, Barney moved to New York, where he used a studio space in Brooklyn for a short time. He selected the gymnasium, rather than a more conventional exhibition space, as it seemed better suited to his performance, which involved carrying out an athletic workout routine. ![]() ![]() He created his earliest works while at Yale and exhibited his thesis project, a performance/installation titled Field Dressing (1989), in the university's Payne Whitney Athletic Complex. His peers at Yale recognized his artistic talent and petitioned for him to be allowed to participate in the university's graduate art program while still an undergraduate. After two semesters, he changed his major to art. In 1985, Barney attended Yale University on a football scholarship, with plans to study pre-med in lieu of a career as a plastic surgeon. Young Matthew made frequent trips to visit her there, and it was in New York that he developed an interest in the contemporary art scene. When Barney was twelve his parents divorced and his mother moved to New York City. He recognized that his early involvement in team sports influenced the collaborative nature of his artistic practice. During high school, Barney excelled at sports and made the wrestling and football teams. The family lived in San Francisco until Matthew was seven years old and then moved to Boise, Idaho. Barney is a strong advocate of collaboration (which he attributes to his early success in team sports), but the fact that he avoids self-publicity and unnecessary media attention (unlike Damien Hirst to whom he is sometimes compared) has added to his substantial cult following.īarney's mother was Marsha Gibney, a painter specializing in what she called "biomorphic abstraction". Barney's work, which provokes psychological fantasies that many find deeply challenging, is dense with references to training camps and medical apparatus, allusions to anatomical movement, the history of art, and the iconography, history, and mythology of ancient cultures. His works, which blend Video Art, Performance Art, and sculptural installations, are concerned with physical movement (sport and choreographed dance) and they carry deep thematic undercurrents of sexual and bodily excess. One of the most important figures in the contemporary art world, and known primarily for large-scale film projects, including his career-defining Cremaster Cycle (1994-2002), Barney has proved one of the most daring and ambitious American artists to gain fame from the late-twentieth-century onward.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |