Matthew Barney is one of the world’s leading artists, embodying the 21st century with his endeavors to fuse physical and virtual-data sensation through intimately related sculpture and film practices. He has fascinated the contemporary art world since the 1980s with sculptures, films, performances, and works that integrate these media.
This exhibition primarily focuses on Drawing Restraint 9, the ninth work in the Drawing Restraint series which Barney launched in the late 1980s and which consists of films, drawings, and sculptures, along with related works that introduce the narrative, motifs, and characters of the series.
As a new installment in the Drawing Restraint series, Drawing Restraint 9 had its world premiere at Barney’s first major solo exhibition in Japan, held at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa in 2005. The work, which conveys Japanese cultural themes from whaling to the tea ceremony, unfolds in a variety of media including film, sculptural installation, and photography. Shot mainly in Japan, the film presents a distinct visual interpretation of Japanese culture. Icelandic musician Björk composed music for the film and the exhibition installation, and subsequent international tour.
As the title suggests, Drawing Restraint constrains the body during the act of drawing, and grapples with the unpredictable markmaking and forms that emerge from such restraints. Even 17 years after its release, the message contained in the work, which addresses issues of the human body and the world around it, the activity inside and outside the body, resonates as powerfully as ever with viewers today.
