This photograph shows a ball with an eye projected onto it, lying on the floor.

Sammlung Goetz

Matthew Barney – Tony Oursler – Jeff Wall

July 21, 1996 – January 30, 1997

This exhibition at Sammlung Goetz united the works of three North American artists and focused on one general theme: contemporary human nature.

Matthew Barney, Tony Oursler and Jeff Wall are among the most interesting artists of the closing twentieth century. Their photographs, films, videos and video installations take up central issues of human relationships and identify complex biological, social and political constellations. Although they are preoccupied with the state of human nature today, they choose timeless imagery.

In Matthew Barney's photographs and films, mysterious entities – somewhere between humans and animals – populate opulent visual worlds. Tony Oursler awakens his dolls to life using video projections and renders them conversational partners in absurd dialogues. The perfectly staged photographs of Jeff Wall, presented in large lightboxes, are reminiscent of the artificiality of film sets. The exhibition in Sammlung Goetz displayed current works by the three North American artists created during the 1990s.