Matthew Barney's 'Subliming Vessel' exhibition at Morgan Library explores mythology, Detroit, and bodily experience

Matthew Barney's exhibition 'Subliming Vessel' ran from May 10 to September 2, 2013 at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. The show presented over two decades of drawings and small works connected to the artist's performance and video projects. One drawing, RIVER ROUGE: Djed (2011), served as an instruction for a performance involving molten steel poured from Detroit furnaces. The work Djed: The Case for Saving Detroit (2010) featured J. Pierpont Morgan's Egyptian votive figure of Osiris alongside Time magazines about Detroit's 2008 crisis. Norman Mailer's 1983 novel Ancient Evenings appeared in the piece Ancient Evenings: Ba Libretto (2009), with books covered in drawings, gold leaf, and salt. Barney's Drawing Restraint performance left a black arc on the gallery wall, created with charcoal dust and Vaseline. Early drawings like HYPERTROPHY: Incline (1991) displayed graphite and Vaseline lines across grids, referencing bodily training. The exhibition's industrial display cases mirrored library conservation techniques while connecting to Detroit's manufacturing history.