“I knew that I wanted to include an essay on forest fires in the book, but because the topic is so politically divisive, the contemporary essays I read felt too narrow and specific. Rather than feature a series of art essays, I hoped to engage different disciplines at Yale, including forestry,” Barney said. “When I set out to make a book about the project, I wanted it to deal with the many different narrative and contextual threads that run through the film. Several scenes in the film are set in a burned forest and charred trees provided the basis for the exhibition’s four colossal sculptures, which Barney created by hollowing out trees harvested from the Sawtooth Valley and pouring molten copper and brass into them. The catalogue’s opening essay, “The Relation of Forests and Forest Fires,” was first published in 1899 and is by Gifford Pinchot 1889 B.A., 1925 LL.D., founder of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Oastler Professor of Ecology, introduced the artist to Arthur Middleton ’07 M.E.M, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, who contributed an essay to the show’s catalogue. “The university community enthusiastically embraced the project, and I think that Matthew would agree that its engagement enriched ‘Redoubt’ in compelling and unexpected ways,” said Franks, now the Class of 1956 Director of the Williams College Museum of Art.įor example, Barney met with David Skelly, director of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Knox, Jr., Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, said one of the most exciting aspects of curating the exhibition was reintroducing Barney to campus and facilitating connections with faculty based on the artist’s wide-ranging intellectual interests. Pamela Franks, the art gallery’s former senior deputy director and Seymour H. The piece is made of cast and machined brass, and cast and machined copper. Barney with his sculpture “Diana," one of four monumental sculptures in the exhibition. She serves as the protector of the natural world and a predator roaming within it. Diana is portrayed as a modern-day markswoman with an impressive arsenal. Entwining themes of the hunt, mythology, and artistic creation, the film loosely adapts the myth of Diana, goddess of the hunt, and Actaeon, a hunter who intrudes on the goddess’s privacy and incurs her wrath. The film, which was shot in Idaho’s Sawtooth Valley and the Salmon Challis National Forest, traces a wolf hunt over seven days and nights in the rugged wintry landscape. The show will be on view through June 16 before moving on to Beijing and London. “Redoubt” is Barney’s first major exhibition at his alma mater and his first solo museum exhibition in the United States since his work “River of Fundament” was presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in 2015-16. An artist-conceived catalogue composed of essays by leading scholars of art history, dance theory, and environmental studies complements the show. The project consists of a feature-length film, four monumental sculptures, engravings, and electroplated copper plates. ![]() ![]() The exhibition, “Matthew Barney: Redoubt,” opens at the Yale University Art Gallery on March 1. In developing the exhibition and the book at Yale, I was able to engage the many layers that interested me in the ‘Redoubt’ material.” “Working with a university presented the opportunity to follow those different directions and encounter a broader community of researchers and scholars who had expertise in something other than contemporary art. “This project led me through several different lines of inquiry - American landscape painting, the history of electroplating and copper plate printmaking, wildlife ecology, forestry, dance, etc.,” Barney said. came to Yale several times to explore the university’s collections and consult with faculty about his ideas for the multi-faceted project that explores themes as varied as classical mythology, ecology, art history, alchemy, and humanity’s place in the natural world. While developing his latest exhibition, “Redoubt,” renowned artist Matthew Barney ’89 B.A.
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