Title: Matthew Barney
First published: 1991
Description: CREMASTER 1 (1995) is a musical revue performed on the blue Astroturf playing field of Bronco Stadium in Boise, Idaho - Barney's hometown. CREMASTER 2 (1999) is rendered as a gothic Western that introduces conflict into the system. On the biological level it corresponds to the phase of fetal development during which sexual division begins. CREMASTER 3 (2002) is set in New York City and narrates the construction of the Chrysler Building, which is in itself a character - host to inner, antagonistic forces at play for access to the process of (spiritual) transcendence. CREMASTER 4 (1994) adheres most closely to the project's biological model. This penultimate episode describes the system's onward rush toward descension despite its resistance to division. The logo for this chapter is the Manx triskelion - three identical armored legs revolving around a central axis. Set on the Isle of Man, the film absorbs the island's folklore as well as its more recent incarnation as host to the Tourist Trophy motorcycle race. When total descension is finally attained in CREMASTER 5 (1997), it is envisioned as a tragic love story set in the romantic dreamscape of late-nineteenth-Century Budapest. The film is cast in the shape of a lyric opera. Biological metaphors shifted form to inhabit emotional states - longing and despair - that become musical leitmotivs in the orchestral score. The opera's primary characters - the Queen of Chain (played by Ursula Andress) and her Diva, Magician, and Giant (all played by Barney) - enact collectively the final release promised by the project as a whole.
Subjects: Exhibitions, Performance art, American Drawing, Video art, Drawing, American, Drawing & drawings, Exhibition catalogues and specific collections, History of art & design styles: from c 1900 -, Individual artists, Art, Art & Art Instruction, Individual Artist, Art / Individual Artist, Techniques - Drawing, Installations (Art), Sculpture, Conceptual, Art, modern, 20th century, exhibitions, Drawing, exhibitions, Painting, exhibitions, Conceptual art, Art, modern, 21st century, exhibitions, European Art, Comparative Art, Interviews
People: Matthew Barney