Matthew Barney
Drawing Restraint
25 February – 24 April 2016
The exhibition is presented alongside Linie Line Linea—Contemporary Drawing, an exhibition of drawings by 20 contemporary artists living and working in Berlin, brought to the Adam by the Institute for Cultural Relations (ifa) and Goethe-Institut Wellington. It also provides a context for the one-night-only screening of Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler’s epic six-hour film, River of Fundament, presented on Saturday 19 March as the Gallery’s contribution to the 2016 New Zealand Festival.
In contrast to Barney’s films and live events, which have in some instances involved hundreds of participants, DRAWING RESTRAINT is Barney’s solo mode of practice. Prior to his exhibitions being made public, Barney will typically deploy trampolines, hoists and technical climbing equipment to ascend and traverse the otherwise empty spaces. Through this process these architectural confines become the restraining element of Barney’s expanded drawing procedures. The residue and marks that result from these interactions index the artist’s contact with his environment, resulting in site-specific works that make a subject of the artist’s body and its physical limitations.
Adam Art Gallery worked with the artist to present these works specifically for its Kirk Gallery. Selected by the artist from his catalogue of the series, the videos were presented on ceiling mounted brackets and provided behind-the-scenes footage of Barney executing his drawings in various sites around the globe: New York, Kanazawa, London, and so on. Seen as a whole, these videos chart the development of Barney’s extraordinary practice. Many of these physical feats are echoed in the endurance-based activities of Barney’s characters in his infamous films: from the Cremaster series (1994 – 2002) to the feature-length film Drawing Restraint 9 (2005).
The DRAWING RESTRAINT works have been jointly loaned from the Schaulager museum, Basel and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Adam Art Gallery acknowledges the generous support of Matthew Barney Studio and Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York.
This exhibition was staged concurrently with Linie Line Linea: Contemporary Drawing.
Installation view, Matthew Barney: DRAWING RESTRAINT, Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Installation view, Matthew Barney: DRAWING RESTRAINT, Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Installation view, Matthew Barney: DRAWING RESTRAINT, Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Installation view, Matthew Barney: DRAWING RESTRAINT, Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Victoria University of Wellington, 2016. Photo: Shaun Waugh
Matthew Barney,DRAWING RESTRAINT 2, 1988, Documentary Photograph. Copyright Matthew Barney, Photo: Michael Rees, Courtesy the Laurenz Foundation, Schaulager, Basel; and The Museum Of Modern Art, New York, Richard S. Zeisler Bequest and The Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund (both by exchange)
Matthew Barney,DRAWING RESTRAINT 6, 1989/2004, Documentation Photograph. Copyright Matthew Barney , Photo: Chris Winget, Courtesy the Laurenz Foundation, Schaulager, Basel; and The Museum Of Modern Art, New York, Richard S. Zeisler Bequest and The Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund (both by exchange)
Matthew Barney,DRAWING RESTRAINT 11, 2005, Documentary Photograph. Copyright Matthew Barney, Photo: Reggie Shiobara, Courtesy the Laurenz Foundation, Schaulager, Basel; and The Museum Of Modern Art, New York, Richard S. Zeisler Bequest and The Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund (both by exchange)
Matthew Barney,DRAWING RESTRAINT 14, 2007, Documentary Photograph, Photo: Ben Blackwell, Copyright Matthew Barney, Courtesy the Laurenz Foundation, Schaulager, Basel; and The Museum Of Modern Art, New York, Richard S. Zeisler Bequest and The Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund (both by exchange)
Matthew Barney,DRAWING RESTRAINT 16, 2007, Documentation Still, Photo: Hugo Glendinning, Copyright Matthew Barney, Courtesy the Laurenz Foundation, Schaulager, Basel; and The Museum Of Modern Art, New York, Richard S. Zeisler Bequest and The Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund (both by exchange)
Matthew Barney,DRAWING RESTRAINT 20, 2013, Documentary Photograph. Copyright Matthew Barney, Photo: Ari Marcopoulos, Courtesy the Laurenz Foundation, Schaulager, Basel; and The Museum Of Modern Art, New York, Richard S. Zeisler Bequest and The Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund (both by exchange)