Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Matthew Barney Awarded "Best Show of 2007" by Critic Jerry Saltz


New York Magazine's senior art critic Jerry Saltz named Matthew Barney's Guarding of the Veil performance the "Best Show" of 2007. Saltz writes:

"On a Sunday afternoon in April, in a raw ground-floor cold-water loft 20 feet from the East River, Matthew Barney staged an extraordinary performance. A spellbound crowd watched him walk around slowly with a dog on his head; two half-naked women bent over backward in order to urinate in an arc, a marching band wore terrorist masks; a huge bull attempted to mate with a 1967 Chrysler. What made all this so great, in addition to Barney’s relentless attempt to plumb his own inner cathedral, was how homemade and speculative the whole thing was. There were more art-student types there than art-world A-listers. Most important, it wasn’t an overproduced glamour event full of celebrities -- just an artist trying to figure something out in front of a grateful audience."

Read the rest of Jerry Saltz's Top 10 List at http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/saltz/saltz12-17-07.asp

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