We've started receiving reports on the Serpentine Gallery's
Drawing Restraint exhibition, including a number of people who ran into Matthew Barney at the exhibition or elsewhere in London. The Serpentine has a "No Photography" policy for the exhibition, but we've been promised a few clandestine photos.
Cremaster Fanatic Andrew sent us some photographs of the
Drawing Restraint Volume V book and the following report:
"As you enter the gallery there is a bank of 8 screens showing various drawing restraints and when you move in to the second room there are the vitrines shown in Drawing restraint Volume 1. IN the first of the large rooms is the Ambergris scultpture which is connected via a long white rope to "holographic entrypoint" in a room on the opposite side of the gallery. In the central atrium he performed a drawing restraint where he climbed the four corners of the gallery to draw on the ceiling. He was supposed to do a fifth climb but it couldn't be completed, he described the work as "a beautiful failure". The exhibition catalogue is about 230 pages and is similar in format to Vols 1-3. It spans the whole Drawing restraint series 1-15 and includes a number of previously unseen images. I've attached some photos (sorry about the quality i only had my phone to hand). The limited edition portfolio is beautiful. The eight images are mounted on paper that is signed, numbered and embossed with the field emblem. They are all housed in a huge white self lubricating resin box. Each box has been individually customised by Matthew with a series of scratches/scores and gouges. In total it weighs apporximately 16.5 kilos!
I also went to the film screening last night where he also did a Q&A session afterwards. The films were great and the Q&A session was interesting. I asked him about how Guardian of the Veil (which is what he called it last night so it appears to be the correct title) and how it related to the cremaster films and he said that Guardian fo the veil is hopefully the start of a longer project where he will depict the seven levels of the descent to death (based on a book he read, the name of which completely escapes me at the moment) and that this first one was meant to be a funeral for the cremaster series. He also said that this new series of work will be live pieces done in real time, i hope they get filmed for a showing though! Aftwerwards he was happy to stay around and talk to everyone and he was incredibly friendly and chatty."
