Artists

Matthew Barney

Press release

The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain presents Matthew Barney’s first institutional exhibition in France for over 10 years. Visitors will discover the American artist’s latest video installation, SECONDARY, alongside new works created especially for the occasion. To accompany the exhibition, the Fondation Cartier will also program a series of unique events and performances.

Filmed in Matthew Barney’s sculpture studio in Long Island City, New York, US, where it was shown for the first time in spring 2023, SECONDARY is a five- channel video installation set within the context of an American football field. For sixty minutes, eleven performers — mainly dancers and movement artists with older bodies, including the artist — abstract the action that takes place on the field.

The plot of SECONDARY revolves around the memory of an accident that occurred during a professional football game on August 12, 1978, where Jack Tatum, a defensive back for the Oakland Raiders, delivered an open field hit on Darryl Stingley, a wide receiver for the New England Patriots. Stingley was left paralyzed. Rebroadcast over and over in sports media, this tragic event would remain seared in the minds of football fans and the young Barney, himself a youth league quarterback at the time.

This new work demonstrates the complex superposition of real violence and its representation — as well as celebration — through sports entertainment. It examines the game and affiliated culture through a unique movement vocabulary developed collaboratively with the cast of performers, including movement director David Thomson, and Barney. The result is a highly physical, bodily study that focuses on every element of the game: training drills, pre-game rituals, moments of impact, and slow-motion replays.