In the history of contemporay art

The American artist Matthew Barney (born in 1967) created an extraordinary series of five films between 1994 and 2002 that have gone down in the history of contemporary art. His moving images without speech have evoked ideas around speed, physical prostheses, and close contact with the presence of strange roaming figures, often with a certain sensuality, too.

Secondary

It wasn’t yet the era of artificial intelligence and Matthew Barney had already invented, with his vocabulary linking materials and gestures, a unique fantasy world. All this to say that his big comeback has been anticipated. In 1994 he presented his first “Cremaster” film at the Cartier Foundation in Paris. Until 8 September he is exhibiting at Fondation Cartier “Secondary”, his film made at his studio in 2023.

Like in those American restaurants

The screening could feel unsettling, because in the large empty space surrounded by glass walls (the building surrounded by trees was designed by Jean Nouvel) he has simply laid out a huge red carpet striped with a giant geometric form. At certain ends of the space, on the ceiling he’s hung five screens showing five different actions which, as a whole, form “Secondary”. They are placed high up, like in those American restaurants where diners eat while watching sports.

I grew up playing American football

To construct a narrative, Barney deconstructs. In this case he has used for his raw material a theme that marked him at a young age. “I grew up playing American football. I competed up until when I started making art. I was never good enough to go any further.”

Blood games

Becoming an artist, for him, meant “excavating my emotional experience, expressing the psychological dynamic that goes with the competitions.” Barney classifies American football along with boxing in the category of “blood games”.

Oakland Raiders/New England Patriots

One of his key memories dates from 12 August 1978 at a very high-profile game, where Jack Tatum, a defensive back with the Oakland Raiders, collided with Darryl Stingley, a wide receiver from the New England Patriots. The latter was seriously injured and ended up with quadriplegia. Together with a team of dance specialists, the artist used photos and film archives which he dissected and reconstructed in his own way, in collaboration with them.

Vulnerability of bodies

“We translated certain athletic movements. The vulnerability of bodies is at the centre of the story,” he explains. This film doesn’t offer itself up to the viewer. It requires an effort to understand it.

Methodology of violence

Does it have a moral message? Barney’s response: “Of course there is a critique in ‘Secondary’. Football is an extension of American culture. It pushes a methodology of violence further. We already find traces of it with the first American settlers.” In any case, these days Matthew Barney doesn’t even attend American football games as a spectator. He only watches them from a distance without the sound. “I can’t bear the commentating,” he concludes.

Until 8 September. www.fondationcartier.com