Interview Magazine, interview by Matthew Barney
2025
Jordan Wolfson was first struck by the work of Matthew Barney in high school during a visit to New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art. While the two artists might seem wholly unalike in style and form—Barney’s a surrealist wizard; Wolfson’s a digital provocateur—they’re cut from the same mad-genius cloth. Both blow past the boundaries of art, dragging viewers into deep, squirmy territory—and they don’t come out clean. This summer at the Fondation Beyeler, Wolfson drops “Little Room,” a VR trip into his twisted headspace—think full-body scans, identity swaps, and a healthy dose of existential dread. Wolfson, holed up in L.A. with his dogs Tofu and Broomstick, was still fine-tuning the madness when he rang up Barney to talk sculpture, slapstick, and the vast indifference of the universe.