Matthew Barney

American contemporary artist Matthew Barney introduces us to his film Redoubt and the sculptural work Bason Creek Burn, both of which are in the National Gallery's collection.

Visually stunning and ambitious, Redoubt unfolds as a series of hunts in the wilderness of Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains. The characters communicate a mythological narrative through dance, letting movement replace language as they pursue each other and their prey.

By layering classical, cosmological, and American myths about humanity’s place in the natural world, Redoubt forms a complex portrait of the central Idaho region.

Redoubt, premiered at the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, and then travelled to UCCA, Beijing, in September 2019, and the Hayward Gallery, London in 2020.