This exhibition consists of three sculptures and a photograph related to his recent projec to explore "resistance as a pre-requisite for development and a vehicle for creativity". Throughout the work, Barney addresses various themes surrounding the history and culture of Japan including the Shinto religion, the tea ceremony, the history of whaling, and the sub-plantation of blubber with refined petroleum for oil.
Drawing restraint 9
Sadie Coles HQ is pleased to
announce their first exhibition with
acclaimed artist Matthew Barney.
Since the early nineties his work has
spanned all media - film, sculpture,
photography, drawing, and
performance – in order to capture the
meticulous vision of his masterworks.
This exhibition, his first commercial
show in London, will consist of three
sculptures and a photograph related to
his recent project DRAWING
RESTRAINT 9.
DRAWING RESTRAINT 9 is the most
complex installment in an ongoing
series is to explore “resistance as a pre-requisite for development and a vehicle for
creativity.” The feature film DRAWING RESTRAINT 9 features Barney and musician
Björk, who also scored the film, as Occidental Guests aboard a whaling vessel in the
Sea of Japan who’s seemingly predestined meeting results in an unconventional
romance. Throughout the work, Barney addresses various themes surrounding the
history and culture of Japan including the Shinto religion, the tea ceremony, the history
of whaling, and the sub-plantation of blubber with refined petroleum for oil.
The three sculptures featured in this exhibition are each a portrait of the film’s main
protagonists: the male and female characters and the whaling ship, whose subsequent
transformations power the film’s action. Barney creates sculptures recalling the
architecture of the vessel and the physical transformations that take place, reflecting
on the relationship between the Japanese Hosts and the titular Occidental Guests.
Matthew Barney was born in 1967 and studied art at Yale University. He has received
numerous awards including the Aperto prize at the 1993 Venice Biennale and the 1996 Hugo
Boss Award. He has been included in group exhibitions worldwide such as Documenta IX in
Kassel, Germany; the Whitney Biennials of 1993 and 1995; and the groundbreaking “Post-
Human” exhibition in 1992. His solo exhibition “The Cremaster Cycle,” organized by the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, traveled to the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, and
the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. The large-scale exhibition of the entire “Drawing
Restraint” series toured to San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the 21st Century Museum of
Modern Art in Kanazawa, Japan, and the Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea, in
2005.
For further information or images please contact Julia Holdway on +44 20 7434 2227 or
julia@sadiecoles.com
Opening 2 october 2007
Sadie Coles HQ (HQ off-site)
53 Central Street, London EC1
Free Admission