Matthew Barney

In conversation with Dr Laini Burton

The celebrated artist Matthew Barney, who works across sculpture, photography, drawing and film, has created something of his own visual language – intriguing, at times inscrutable, always unforgettable. His 2018 film Redoubt, set in the wilderness of Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains with a cast of real endangered wolves and hunters, expands his complex visual universe. The film stars the artist as the character of The Engraver, recording the sublime landscape while he too is hunted. Like Drawing Restraint (1987–), The Cremaster Cycle series (1994–2002) and River of Fundament (2014) before it, Redoubt is an epic masterpiece rich in art historical and mythological detail that cements Barney’s reputation as one of the most intriguing artists of our time. VAULT spoke to Barney about mythology, American history, trauma and choreography.

Pakistani born Huma Bhabha makes objects, drawings and sculptures that explore the figurative impulse. Using salvaged furniture or polystyrene, clay, wood, cork, paper, plastic, rubber and metal, Bhabha’s work challenges tropes of monumentality through the borrowing from and referencing of ancient and modern cultural materials. Shivanjani Lal is a Fijian-Australian artist whose work uses personal grief to account for ancestral loss, exploring narratives of indenture and migratory histories from the Indian and Pacific oceans. Recent works have used storytelling, objects and video to account for lost histories, guiding audiences through lived and imagined narratives that attempt to decipher what is lost and the possibilities of futures.

Miranda Skoczek creates works of monumental colour and texture, offering respite and reflection in a busy world.

AULT examines Justene Williams’ shape-shifting practice with its focus on the body as both a material and subject matter for re-invention.

Creating spaces that declare difference, Shannon Novak offers alternative modes of thinking about marginalised sexual and gender identities.

The joyous work of multidisciplinary artist and musician Zaachariaha Fielding knows no boundaries, forging links between past, present and a collective, queer future.

Photo essay

Spirited, irreverent and preparing for a blockbuster 2022, multidisciplinary artist and designer Jordan Gogos conforms to nothing but the forces of his intuition. VAULT spoke to Gogos about moving fluidly between the worlds of fashion and art, his design ethos favouring materiality over form, and an Australian-first partnership between his brand Iordanes Spyridon Gogos and Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum in 2022.

German-born Matthias Arndt and his Australian partner in life and art Tiffany Wood-Arndt are unstoppable movers and shakers in the international art world. With homes to house their collection in Berlin, Athens and Australia, they’ve amassed an enviable collection of art. The ebullient and charming Matthias speaks about their love of art from their Victorian Cape Schanck locale, where they are gearing up for the opening of the much awaited Arndt Artbarn.