In his first New York solo show in 1991, a 23-year-old Barney presented a video of himself climbing the walls and ceiling of Gladstone Gallery (left), naked in a harness. The video was displayed alongside a walk-in cooler that featured an exercise bench cast in petroleum jelly. Ever since, his work has dripped with translucent fluid.
Goo permeates luxury fashion today, from Balenciaga's so-called slime printed hoodies (right) to the ooze that trickled from the ceiling at two Prada shows last year (center).
Barney is perhaps the greatest living artist of corporeal fluids, whether urine, feces, semen, blood, or breast milk. His 311-minute film River of Fundament (left), a very loose adaptation of Norman Mailer's 1983 novel, Ancient Evenings, opens with Barney emerging from a river of excrement...
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