Subliming Vessel: The Drawings of Matthew Barney

by Klaus Kertess, Roni Horn, Adam Phillips

This accompanying catalogue to largest exhibition of Matthew Barney’s extraordinary drawings to date explores this central aspect of the artist’s important body of work.
 
Drawing has always been an incredibly important part of Matthew Barney’s his first major work—completed while still at Yale Art School—involved him creating a wall drawing while harnessed to the ceiling of his studio . In this exhibition and accompanying catalogue, one hundred of the artist’s most important drawings are presented from his major series of works—including “The Cremaster Cycle,” “The Drawing Restraint” series, and most notably “Ancient Evenings,” the body of work that has occupied the artist in the last few years (and is based on Norman Mailer’s ancient Egyptian-inspired novel of the same name).
 
This exhibition and catalogue also represent a unique collaboration between the artist and the august Morgan Library, in which he was invited by the institution to mine their extensive holdings in order to include objects (drawings, manuscripts, etc.) in the installation of his work, to create an interesting framework around the many ideas the artist is exploring.
 
In addition to a major essay by curator Klaus Kertess, who considers the many themes the artist draws from, the book includes a poetic contribution by artist Roni Horn and an insightful text by Adam Phillips, noted psychoanalyst.

Genres: Art

244 pages, Hardcover

First published May 7, 2013

About the author

Klaus Kertess was an American art gallerist, art critic and curator (including of the 1995 Whitney Biennial). He grew up in Westchester County north of New York City, the second of three children. After graduating from Phillips Academy, he studied art history at Yale University and in 1966 founded the Bykert Gallery with his college roommate Jeff Byers. The gallery name was formed from a compound of both of theirs. At Bykert he showed a roster of artists which included; Brice Marden, David Novros, Barry Le Va, Alan Saret, Chuck Close, Bill Bollinger, Dorothea Rockburne, and many others.
Later as an independent curator he oversaw the 1995 edition of the Whitney Biennial. Then in 1998 he curated the exhibition DeKooning: Drawing/Seeing at the Drawing Center also in New York City.
Kertess suffered from Alzheimer's and died on October 8, 2016, after collapsing at his apartment. He was 76. He is survived by his longtime partner, the painter Billy Sullivan.