Art Metropole

#16695

Drawing Restraint 7

Artist

Matthew Barney

Date

1993

Publisher

Cantz Verlag

Format

Artists' Books

ISBN

389322792x

Size

23 × 30.5 × 0.5 cm

Genre

Contemporary Art, Film & Cinema

Returning to the project in 1993, Barney made Drawing Restraint 7, a work formally distinct from its precedents. Departing from the realism that had characterized the series, this three-channel video delves unabashedly into a fictional and mythological world. The three-part narrative features satyrs, played by actors (including the artist) heavily costumed in makeup and prosthetics. In one sequence, a young satyr writhes, fruitlessly attempting to catch its tail. In a second video, a more mature creature poses for the camera. The third video depicts a nighttime limousine ride through New York’s five boroughs. The young satyr drives while the elders, bathed in blue neon light, engage in a wrestling match, each attempting to mark or draw on the car’s fogged sunroof with their horns. Informed by his experience as a football player, Barney often brings his body into his work, and these videos develop his central concern—masculinity as performance—and position it as an enduring obsession in Western culture, from ancient Greece to the present.