American multimedia artist Matthew Barney works in fields including film, sculpture, drawing, and photography, using materials as surprising as petroleum jelly and functioning walk-in coolers. The human body and its energetic flow inform his practice. Recruited to play college football, Barney brings athleticism to his art. He challenges himself and his collaborators to create work under specific physical limits, such as jumping on a trampoline or struggling to draw while strapped into restraints or riding a skateboard. For Barney, such parameters turn the artist into his own energy source through a process of consumption, discipline, and production in which energy is never fully released or allowed to dissipate.

–Jean Bascom, from the Glenstone Field Guide