MATTHEW BARNEY OR THE VOLUNTARY VIA CRUCIS
Schaulager® Münchenstein/Basel "Matthew Barney. Prayer Sheet with the Wound and the Nail" 12 June – 3 October 2010 View of an exhibition room
Photo: Tom Bisig, Basel
The first time I encountered the work by Matthew Barney (San Francisco, 1967) in Basel was not at the Schaulager but at the Kunstmuseum. One of his drawings was on show there, along with works by Durer, Cranach, Schongauer and other German and Alsatian masters from the 16th century, sharing a wall with Hans Baldung Grien and his well-known painting on limewood where Death courts a woman. In what bears a (disproportionate) contrast with that single sheet of paper, a group of works by these artists, among others, including some isolated paintings, but mainly a formidable collection of etchings and xylographs from the 15th and 17th centuries, were at the disposal of Barney and the curator Neville Wakefield in the vast spaces of the Schaulager. In fact, the strange title of the exhibition, Prayer Sheet with the Wound and the Nail, is linked to a very specific variant of pious engravings, where the instruments of the Passion and their effects on the body of Christ are brought together.
One of the strategic advantages of displaying this drawing in this way, out of context, is that it arouses curiosity and encourages visitors to pay more attention to it than to other similar pieces in the Schaulager, competing with the striking and enigmatic sculptural and videographic memorabilia found in the various editions of Drawing Restraint, a series which, since 1987, has defined the work of this North American artist.
The drawing in question (Der Tod und das Mädchen) belongs to a symbolist and macabre lineage, which began in the Middle Ages, continued with Baldung Grien and was further examined by decadent and surreal artists such as Paalen. It also serves as a summary of Drawing Restraint #17, an action conducted and recorded in Basel. In it, symbolic materials are combined in order to continue feeding an insatiable personal mythology. The theme of the Death and the Maiden is mixed with that of Icarus, and with our memory of Barney’s own actions, who tends to make use of his athletic skills to climb the walls, although in Basel it was a female climber (the Maiden), not Barney, who attempted to climb the great atrium of the Schaulager, and whom we would watch as she fell to the ground, like Icarus.
One of Barney’s most memorable images comes from Drawing Restraint #7 (1993). What up to then had been more or less conventional actions suddenly underwent a process of extreme Baroquisation. In that piece, the artist dressed up as a satyr, reminding us that his work is a prolific factory of symbolic hybrids, where others’ myths and rites become his own obsessions. It is a world that boasts its own dictionary and even a coat of arms. In Basel we find odes to pheromones and the fitness aesthetics, satyrs being driven around in limos, transvestites, the escape artist Harry Houdini, General MacArthur and some ornate productions on Japanese themes: the whaling fleet, Shinto temples, the tea ceremony, etc. They are combined with Christian iconography and devotional prints. The parallel established with sacred art is reinforced by the design of the show, arranged on two levels: the upper level, with a basilica-like structure and a number of rooms presented as chapels; and the lower level, reminiscent of a crypt. This crypt, surprisingly, is where we find the largest and most striking statues, presenting a childish and psychoanalytic image, according to which the sublime lies underground.
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