DETROIT, MI.- Matthew Barney, renowned for his epic Cremaster Cycle, will give a talk at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) on Wednesday, Jan. 13 at 7 p.m. in the DIA auditorium. The event is free, but a “free pass,” which can be obtained at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/493817020, must be presented at the door.

Since his classic Cremaster Cycle, Barney has completed sculpture and film works including Drawing Restraint 9, De Lama Lamina, and Ren. For the Reva Taubman Stocker Memorial Lecture, Barney will discuss his recent activities including Khu, a Detroit-based chapter of his newest project, an opera in seven acts loosely based on Norman Mailer’s 1983 novel, Ancient Evenings. Barney is collaborating with composer Johnathan Bepler on the project.

Ren, the first chapter, was performed in Los Angeles in 2007. Barney updates Mailer’s plot from an ancient Egyptian narrative to a present day account of reincarnation and rebirth set in an American landscape. The seven chapters of this tale will take place in seven cities and correspond to the seven stages of the soul’s departure from the body according to Egyptian mythology. Barney’s retelling replaces the body of a man with the remains of a car featured in Cremaster 3.

Barney, born in 1967 in San Francisco, lives and works in New York. He has been included in group exhibitions such as Documenta IX, the 1993 and 1995 Whitney Biennial and the 1993 and 2003 Venice Biennale. His one-person exhibition, The Cremaster Cycle, and a retrospective of the Drawing Restraint series travelled internationally. Barney has received numerous awards, including the Aperto prize at the 1993 Venice Biennale, the Hugo Boss award in 1996, and the 2007 Kaiser Ring Award in Goslar, Germany.