Secondary

In SECONDARY, world-renowned artist and filmmaker Matthew Barney explores the spectacle of violence in American football and culture. This is the definitive two-volume companion to this important work.

SECONDARY is a five-channel video installation, performed in Barney’s Long Island City studio in 2023, then in London, Paris, and Los Angeles in 2024. The plot revolves around an accident that occurred during a football game in 1978, when Oakland Raiders’ Jack Tatum delivered an open field hit on Darryl Stingley, a wide receiver for the New England Patriots. Stingley was left paralyzed. The tragic event remained seared in the minds of American fans, including Barney himself, a youth-league quarterback at the time.

Through allusion to American sports culture, SECONDARY explores the complex intersection of violence, its representation, and its celebration. It reimagines the game through a unique movement vocabulary. The result is a physical study that focuses on every element of the game, from drills and pre-game rituals to moments of impact and their slow-motion replays.

Volume 1 explores SECONDARY in depth, with essays by leading contemporary voices. Volume 2 maps the life of Barney’s former Long Island City studio, where SECONDARY premiered to the public.