Matthew Barney: Redoubt, Hayward Gallery review – Barney’s cosmic hunt-myth film succeeds through sheer conviction

Anyone familiar with the provocative artist’s elaborate cultural cross-referencing won’t be surprised to learn that Redoubt is a reworking of the classical myth of Diana and Actaeon

One of Diana’s entourage in Redoubt, 2019 by Matthew Barney (Matthew Barney)

Billed by the Hayward Gallery as “one of the most ambitious and provocative artists of our time”, Matthew Barney, the former Mr Björk, has become a huge name on the international art scene without individual works making a particular impact – certainly not in this country. And given that his best-known work, the Cremaster Cycle, is a series of five feature-length films – with accompanying drawings, sculptures and installations – in which Barney himself plays a tap-dancing satyr and mass murderer Gary Gilmore, that isn’t perhaps surprising: this is not art that can be instantly absorbed or pigeon-holed.

I must admit, though, to feeling dismay on learning that this show – the 54-year-old American’s first in a British public gallery in more than a decade – centres on a two-hour-plus film. Sitting in the dark for long periods tends to mix awkwardly with the wander-at-will nature of the gallery experience. Shows mixing feature-length films and other art forms – paintings, sculpture or installation – rarely gel in my experience. One element tends to dominate, and generally it’s the film.

Given social distancing, however, the Hayward is providing ticket holders with a link to Barney’s film Redoubt for a week around their visit so they can get a flavour of the film, even watch the whole thing, before they set foot in the gallery. And it is a hell of a film.