Matthew Barney: REPRESSIA (decline)

Matthew Barney’s expansive career began in the early 1990s with significant gallery exhibitions that established his interest in centering the body and performance in his installations and media productions. Barney’s REPRESSIA (decline) is a seminal installation from his breakout solo exhibition Facility of DECLINE at Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York, in 1991. The room-sized sculptural installation features two videos in which Barney performs strenuous acts of athletics with unorthodox outcomes: Radial Drill (1991) and Blind Perineum (1991). The central space features sculptural components that draw from the exercise equipment and materials used in wrestling, some of which are fashioned out of transmutable elements such as cast petroleum wax and petroleum jelly. Recently acquired by LACMA, REPRESSIA (decline) established Barney’s visual language and anticipates the corporeal drive of his Cremaster cycle of five films, all of which feature performance across different sites and timelines.