![]() ![]() Barney tap-dances his way through the floor of a lighthouse to the water below, then crawls back through a slime-filled tunnel. Penile racing cars traverse foreign landscapes, and a Goodyear blimp, bearing a resemblance to a vagina, becomes a residence for a harem of color-coded stewardesses. The characters, including those played by the artist, are oddly formed creatures with equally bewildering genitals. However, Barney presents his visions as real narratives, not dreams or fantasies. Each highly produced segment evokes the Surrealist films of Luis Buñuel. The film’s title refers to the gland that causes the testicles to retract when exposed to cold, and the series has caused more than a few viewers to shudder. Instead of merely employing special effects and science-fiction films, Barney creates a personal vocabulary. “CREMASTER,” a series of films he began showing in 1994, is Barney’s most famous body of work. “Top 10 Living Artists: The Wizard of Odd” ![]() Houdini is a great example of someone who took on a self-imposed restraint mechanism as a means to grow creatively.” How self-imposed resistance made that possible. For Barney each personifies a concept that is central to his work-as he puts it, “the way that a body is developed under the will of an athlete. These sequences, episodes in an ongoing epic, revolve around two principal players: Jim Otto, a legendary center for the Los Angeles Raiders in the ’70s (who has appeared in uniform, in drag, and as a satyr), and the great escape artist Houdini. While his props are exhibited as art objects, Barney’s installations hinge on his videos. ©MATTHEW BARNEY/COURTESY GLADSTONE GALLERY, NEW YORK AND BRUSSELS Matthew Barney, OTTOshaft, 1992, production still. Was Barney couching an AIDS metaphor in the perils of sports, or simply acknowledging the inevitable decline of the body? Cast in wax, petroleum jelly, and tapioca, Barney’s Olympic weights, dumbbells, blocking tackles, and curling bars all became sculpture, exhibited individually and as props in his videos.īarney’s “gym,” stark white and littered with medical instruments, evoked not a sweaty haven for tussling jocks, but the antiseptic coldness of a hospital. Combining sculpture and video, Barney turned the gallery into his own private training camp as he raised athletic equipment (with a wink to Duchamp) to art status. In honor of that presentation, titled “Facility of DECLINE,” below are excerpts from the ARTnews archives about the early part of the artist’s career.įootball, with its premium on bodily contact, has always seemed sexual, and Matthew Barney’s installation bore this out in its gooey, erotic ode to the game. That was 25 years ago, in 1991, and now Gladstone is celebrating Barney’s legendary exhibition by more or less restaging it. Street Muppets NWA at 46 min contains graphic language.ĭragon Fly Eyes includes real footage of bus and car crash as well as a plane and train crash, other explosions and natural disasters.Before The Cremaster Cycle existed, and long before Kanye West claimed its director as an inspiration, Matthew Barney climbed across the ceiling of Gladstone Gallery in New York for his first show there. Planet of the Arabs at 28 min contains graphic violence, racist language and fast edits. Power Remix at 22min is bright colors and fast cuts. Vader Lives at 18min 20 is very fast edits and loud noises. ![]() Timber at 13min 20 is comprised of mostly fast cuts. Stand Brahkage at 11min is full of fast changing images. Vertical Role at 7 min is contains flashing images. Granular Synthesis is comprised of Kurt Hentschläger (Austrian) & Ulf Langheinrich (German) – Modell 5 (Performance Documentation, Excerpt), 1994-95, artist duo based in Berlin Lisa Steele – Birthday Suit with scars and defects (Excerpt), 1974, artist based in Torontoĭouglas Gordon – 24 Hour Psycho, (Excerpt) 1993, Scottish artistĬhristian Marclay – The Clock (Excerpt, Audience Documentation), 2010, Swiss artistīill Viola – Tristan’s Ascension (The Sound of a Mountain Under a Waterfall), (Audience Documentation), 2005, American artist based in New Yorkĭavid Rokeby – Machine for Taking Time (bool St.-Laurent) (Excerpt), 2007, artist based in Toronto Installation for 1200 battery-powered alarm clocks, CNC cut Styrofoam structure. – Coincidence Engine One: Universal People’s Republic Time (Documentation), 2008, artist duo based in Montreal Shot on 35mm film and transferre to video. Sam Taylor-Wood (now Sam Taylor-Johnson) – Still Life, 2001, artist and filmmaker based in London and Los Angeles ![]()
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