matthew barney: prayer sheet with the wound and the nail

matthew barney, drawing restraint 15, 2007documentary photograph © matthew barney image courtesy of neville wakefield

as part of the ‘matthew barney: prayer sheet with the wound and the nail’ exhibition happening from 12 june to 3 october 2010 in switzerland, schaulager is presenting ‘drawing restraint’ series by matthew barney.

‘drawing restraint’ is a series of performances, numbering sixteen thus far, in which matthew barney leaves traces in an environment of self-induced physical and psychological restraints. works emerging from these performances, such as sculptures, vitrines, drawings and videos, are juxtaposed in the schaulager exhibition with works of art from the northern renaissance.

‘drawing restraint 15’, matthew barney, 2007 documentary photograph © matthew barney image courtesy of neville wakefield

detail

‘mendicant guided by the devil’, urs graf (circa 1485 – 1527/1528), 1512 pen and dark brown ink, 8.3 x 6.1 inches öffentliche kunstsammlung basel, kupferstichkabinett, amerbach-kabinett image courtesy of öffentliche kunstsammlung basel, martin p. bühler

‘drawing restraint 2’, matthew barney, 1988 documentary photograph © matthew barney photo: michael rees

the laurenz foundation, the organization that operates schlager will acquire in partnership with the museum of modern art (MoMA) in new york the archive of matthew barney performance series. thanks to the joint acquisition by these two institutions, the the performance work will be presented to the public as a whole for the first time. the basic idea of ‘drawing restraint’ is that form can only take shape when it struggles against resistance. the series, which started in his early student life at yale was initiated by using apparatuses that hindered his process of drawing. this was followed by his performances which used environments with ramps, sloping surfaces, elastic belts and obstacles that exclusively served to restrict the artist’s skill. as the series developed, the setting of his performances became increasingly sophisticated and the narrative more allegorical.

objects derived from the performances capture certain aspects of his action in the form of
 drawings, sculptures, vitrines and photographs. these objects are never random
 but always carefully selected and arranged. each action is also documented on video.
’drawing restraint 9′ is conceived as a full-length feature film. for the first time matthew
 barney acts with his partner, björk, who also contributed the soundtrack. the two of them
 play lovers on a mysterious trip aboard a japanese whaling ship. this work is about 
metamorphoses, meditation, the act of creation, death and resurrection.

the ‘drawing restraint’ series now in its 16th part, is a point of departure for a significantly broader-based exhibition at schaulager, with works from the emanuel hoffmann foundation and other additional loans.

the choice to juxtapose the work of matthew barney with the 15th and 16 century prints by  martin schongauer, albrecht dürer and urs graf, is not to draw parallels between secular and religious visual traditions. instead, the arrangement is an attempt to bring out latent meaning in matthew barney’s work. these include the expenditure of energy, the overcoming of resistance and the theme of rising and falling; a recurring topic in christian iconography.

the exhibition at schaulager will be arranged on two floors. the entire ‘drawing restraint’ archive is shown on the ground floor, with counterpoint provided by woodcuts, engravings and drawings from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. on the lower level, three monumental sculptures belonging to ‘drawing restraint 9’ – torii, cetacea, occidental restraint – are presented along with a new work.

schaulager has appointed neville wakefield as guest curator for the exhibition. the new york based author and curator has a profound knowledge of matthew barney’s work and will be organizing the exhibition project in close collaboration with the artist and the schaulager team. schaulager is the sole venue for this exhibition.