The first major public exhibition in the UK of the work of artist Matthew Barney.
The exhibition consisted of sculpture, installation, performance, drawing and film from throughout Barney’s Drawing Restraint series, numbers 1 to 16. This series of works investigates the relationship between resistance and creativity, the effects of physical limitation being explored in the parallel realms of artistic and athletic endeavour.
The gallery also collaborated with The Gate Cinema in London on a programme of screenings focusing on Barney’s recent feature film, DRAWING RESTRAINT 9 (2005). A number of large-scale sculptures related to the film, including Ambergris (2005), Holographic Entry Point (2005) and Occidental Restraint (2005) were displayed at the gallery. These works challenged conventional notions of sculptural media in their use of industrial materials, such as polycaprolactone thermoplastic, expanded polystyrene and petroleum jelly.
Matthew Barney: DRAWING RESTRAINT was organised by the Serpentine Gallery in cooperation with Kunsthalle Vienna and was presented in Vienna from 7th March–8th June 2008.
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