Matthew Barney

Cremaster 5

1997

Matthew Barney (b. 1967, San Francisco, California) Matthew Barney is a pioneering American contemporary artist known for his groundbreaking work across sculpture, performance, film, and installation. After studying at Yale University (B.A., 1989), Barney quickly rose to international prominence in the 1990s for his physically demanding performances and highly symbolic, multimedia environments that explore themes of transformation, mythology, sexuality, and identity. He is best known for The Cremaster Cycle (1994–2002), a five-part film project that fuses cinema, sculpture, drawing, and installation into a total work of art (Gesamtkunstwerk), widely regarded as one of the most ambitious and original bodies of work in contemporary art. His films are marked by surreal narratives, elaborate prosthetics, and a highly stylized visual language rooted in biology, sports, mysticism, and ritual. Barney’s work defies easy categorization and often requires interdisciplinary engagement. Drawing as much from Joseph Beuys and Richard Serra as from bodybuilding, medical science, and classical opera, Barney constructs alternate mythologies that are both personal and universal. Major solo exhibitions of his work have been held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, among others. His films have been screened in prestigious venues such as the Cannes Film Festival and the Whitney Museum. Barney currently lives and works in New York.