About the Artist

Matthew Barney is an American artist renowned for provocative explorations of the body and ritual across sculpture, installation, film, performance, and drawing. Since the early 1990s, Barney’s epic projects have addressed the complex spectacle of violence in American culture, merging references to classical mythology, modern history, sports, human anatomy, and popular culture. His films and ritualistic performances feature elaborate costumes, objects often coated in viscous substances, and sets evoking military training camps, sports arenas, or medical facilities. Barney is perhaps best known for The CREMASTER Cycle (1994–2002), a series of five feature-length films and related sculptures and drawings that blend references to the human reproductive cycle with mythology and contemporary subculture. His most recent major bodies of work, SECONDARY (2023) and Redoubt (2018), respectively explore the physical brutality of American sports culture and the nation’s myths surrounding landscape. Barney has presented large-scale solo projects at Fondation Cartier, Paris (2024); Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven (2019); and Haus Der Kunst, Munich (2014); among other institutions. He is an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as a recipient of the 1996 Hugo Boss Prize and the Aperto Prize at the 45th Venice Biennale, among other accolades.

About the Speaker

BETSY GAINES QUAMMEN

Betsy Gaines Quammen is a historian and writer. She received a PhD from Montana State University where she studied religion, history and the philosophy of science. Her dissertation focused on Mormon history and the roots of armed public land conflicts occurring in the United States. She is fascinated at how religious views shape relationships to landscape. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, New York Daily News, and the History News Network. She is the author of American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God, and Public Lands in the West and True West: Myth and Mending on the Far Side of America. Betsy lives in Montana with her husband, writer David Quammen, three giant dogs, a sturdy cat, and a lanky rescue python.

DOUG SMITH

Doug Smith is a renowned wildlife biologist who led the Yellowstone Wolf Project for nearly three decades, playing a crucial role in the 1995 reintroduction of gray wolves to the park. He authored several books on the topic, including Decade of the Wolf and The Wolves of Yellowstone, and continues to educate the public as a frequent contributor to National Geographic Live. Smith’s work is recognized for transforming the understanding of wolves as apex predators and their role in maintaining ecosystem balance.