• Original 2007 Matthew Barney Supercontemporary exhibition publication, Electa, Milan. Cover showing Barney in prosthetic makeup with pointed ears and pale skin, wearing a white suit jacket, set against a blue tartan background, with the title in magenta type and series name in a red vertical band.
  • Interior page from 2007 Matthew Barney Supercontemporary, Electa. Showing a production photograph of multiple figures with elaborate floral and bubble headdresses submerged in a field of white pearled material, Barney at centre.
  • Interior spread from 2007 Matthew Barney Supercontemporary, Electa. Focus section showing a production photograph of Drawing Restraint 7, 1993, by Michael James O'Brien: a figure with horned prosthetic head, open mouth, and muscular body against a pale blue sky.
  • Interior spread from 2007 Matthew Barney Supercontemporary, Electa. Showing production photographs of Cremaster 2, 1999 — The Ballad of Max Jensen and The Book of Mormon — by Michael James O'Brien, with figures in striped prison uniform and white cowboy hats.
  • Interior page from 2007 Matthew Barney Supercontemporary, Electa. Showing a production photograph of Barney's figure emerging through a dense mass of white fibrous material, face barely visible at centre.
  • Reverse of 2007 Matthew Barney Supercontemporary, Electa. Magenta and black back cover with Francesco Bonami quote, biographical text, ISBN barcode, and original price of euro 19,00.
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The New Rare

Matthew Barney — Supercontemporary, Electa, Milan, 2007

Matthew Barney — Supercontemporary, Electa, Milan, 2007

£55.00 GBP
£55.00 GBP
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Published as part of the Supercontemporary series edited by Francesco Bonami, this compact volume introduces the work of Matthew Barney through a concise survey of his practice from the early Drawing Restraint works through the Cremaster Cycle and later film-based projects. The book reproduces production photographs, installation views, and key images that helped establish Barney as one of the defining figures of contemporary art in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Few artists of the period generated an image-world as self-contained as Barney's. Athletic ritual, biological transformation, mythology, architecture, and cinema collapse into a single symbolic system. By the time this publication appeared, the Cremaster Cycle had already become one of the most ambitious and discussed multimedia projects of its generation, positioning Barney between experimental film, sculpture, performance, and contemporary mythology.

A small-format survey published during the height of Barney's international visibility. Less a catalogue raisonné than a portable introduction to a practice that expanded the scale and ambition of contemporary art at the turn of the millennium.

A publication designed for circulation rather than permanence. Image, biography, bibliography, and reproduction compressed into a portable format. The larger works remain elsewhere; what survives here is their printed support. A record of how an artist's practice was translated into a form capable of passing through bookstores, museum shops, libraries, collections, and private hands.

Format: Softcover exhibition publication
Illustrations: Colour throughout
Dimensions: Approx. 21 × 17 cm
Pages: 107
Language: English
Publisher: Electa, Milan, 2007
Edited by: Francesco Bonami
Text by: Massimiliano Gioni
Condition: Good vintage condition. Light shelf wear, surface rubbing, softened corners, and minor handling marks to covers. Internally clean.

Shipping and handling included in the listed price. Dispatched flat and securely packed.

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