Matthew Barney: C/D?

What fuck was it? If IMDB wasn't so slow on my machine I'd look it up right now. But it's time for bed and Tove Jansson instead.

Barney's work is like a Poussin painting come to life, or a continuation of the 'metaphysical' fetishism for materials like fat, urine, felt and hare's blood seen in the work of Josef Beuys. He's brilliant at what he does, and he's the only one doing it.

What were they ABOUT? I think art contributes nothing, and in fact makes people feel less connected to each other, unless it's possible to discuss a MEANING to a movie over coffee afterwards.

Wanting just one meaning seems unduly reductive, but there's plenty to discuss if you know your Poussin and your Beuys, or even if you just want to talk about the personal symbolism, for you, of doves or grapes or TT racing or Gary Gilmore, or even just gossip about Bjork and Norman Mailer. It's entertaining on so many levels, there's just no excuse for being stumped for conversation.

bereft of drama, bereft of context or natural progression

I think what you mean is bereft of conventional drama, conventional context, and conventional progression. It's called 'being original'. And yes, MB can get away with this, and skip the 'how will it play in Des Moines' idiocies, because he has the money to do something completely uncompromised. There is, certainly, a certain amount of narcissism in his project, but there's narcissism in most great art that puts Man at the centre of the picture. (Although Barney is as likely to focus on a glacier or a grape as on his own, heavily-disguised, figure.)

The vertigo you describe, your thinly-veiled anger, is the direct result of Barney's complete 'otherness', which is what, for me, makes him so great and so welcome.

(And the kind of world you imply, a world where everything makes sense and is in the correct context, not only bores but terrifies me, because it's the kind of world where it 'makes sense' and is 'in context' for, say, the president of the US to mourn seven deaths while planning 500,000. How does that play in Des Moines? It 'makes sense' because of a non-problematical narrative structure called 'patriotism'.)

The MCA here had an exhibition of some of Barney's plasticine sculptures and large photo prints related to the Cremaster series, but it is no longer up. Apparently such ephemera is typically sold after the Cremaster premieres for premium prices. (A few limited-edition DVDs had been available for upwards of $100,000.)

Finally, anyone interested in Barney should look at the books published by the Gladstone Gallery to accompany each of his film projects. They are filled with lavish photos taken by Barney along with frames from the films themselves, and are always designed so as to be art-objects in themselves (clever overleafs, different qualities of paper, etc.).

The most extreme form of the shaggy dog could be a film that ran forever, that you could duck in and out of always see something new! But to be thorough and everything about this extreme version we'd have to have different editors who didn't talk to each other, different writers doing a kind of exquisite corpse with the script, different compression and effects applied to the audio - MTV basically. So why does MTV usually feel so tyrannical, so riskless? Why did I feel so subjected, so whacked over the head in that screening room, as entrapped as one of Barney's misshapen archaic mutants? Because I didn't do things in the right order! First I was supposed to grok Beuys and Poussin (maybe Bacon too?), or be interested in Bjork's love life - THEN I could be admitted to Barney's uncompromised circle. I think I speak for Des Moines when I say "eh". Hope that's not too thinly veiled!

You know, when I saw the cremaster film (which one has an old yet still beautiful Ursula Andress in it?), it was preceded by a digital video short featuring miniature blimps, his strangely predictable assortment of biogenital creatures; a phalanx of sexualized humanoids participating in a strange ceremony in what looked like an unused back-alley smack in the middle of town, caught on tape. I liked it! It was short and the digital video opened some breathing room from the crushing hermetic exactitude of his stylization. Barney's approach to whatever he's getting at in the Cremaster series is uncompromising, but to the point of being airless?kindof the opposite of what I would have thought you would say, Momus, about having provisional, short-term idea, constructs that fold away when they're no longer necessary, or transform to enclose more area:: quick mime or a sense of humor :P If somebody SCRIBBLed ALL OVER//////// the series of friezes would snap in a second.

I guess it's pretty original. ALTHOUGH there was a repugnantly cruel and graceless J-Lo flick that ripped off his style - what does THAT say? Did he do it first? Shouldn't you be ripped off by the BEST? :o Whichever it is, I certainly can't stop him from making the movies he puts so much care into, he doesn't need my money. Who knows what technical challenges he's solving all along the rocky way that every film production is, all the nuts and bolts and small triumphs. (We'll never know, because those kind of things never make it into his movies.)

Here's another J.Lo flick—taking sides—ts: "Out Of Sight" vs "Schizopolis"

I will be overdosing on the rest of the series as they play out here in SF over the next week. Since I haven't seen the whole series I'm not positive how well the biological theme works, but the images had a strong resonance with me regardless of the intent and I think that's the hallmark of good art anyway.

Also, I don't think that the whole series is coming out on DVD, unfortunately, just The Order section of Cremaster 3 (the bit in the guggenheim w/Agonostic Front deuling w/Murphy's Law), which, while a nice fun diversion from the relentless gloom of the rest of the picture, seemed kind of tacked on and really stunted the dramatic impact of the death of the Apprentice in the film proper (I guess this was the point, but it was a weird one).

I also saw Pirates of the Carribean today, and got just exactly what I hoped to out of it: silly pirate-y fun, with plenty of Depp in eyeliner. It made one hell of a double feature!

Tracer doesn't seem to be stumped for conversation. In fact, T seems to have gotten quite alot to talk about from MB. Maybe Barney is important, but to who exactly? There are 80 year old black ladies in Alabama making art as conceptual, symbolic, powerful and, as far as I'm concerned, important as Barney in their low budget, low tech quilts. And they achived this without hype, budget, or a famous girlfriend. I'm not denying his talent and vision. Personaly I love it. But I cringe when he's touted as THE most important artist. It's a title not unlike "Homecoming Queen".

"too many references, my dear Barney"

look how singualr, hermetic, epic and perverse his vision is, how it is almost cobbled together, and how it mantains its own symbol set.

this is harvey danger at least. (vyvvan girs. have then ame wrong)

we know what's going on, don't we. ;] ;]

and re:narrative--do you bitch to joyce about those things?

Except that the avant garde has been around for so long that refusing convention has become, itself, a convention, and therefore is now exactly the sort of constraint and obstacle course that can provide the structure you're talking about. In other words, there's the kind of repetition and redundancy required already there, and it's been there since Duchamp, at least.

There's even more when an artist establishes a sub-genre as recognizable as Barney's. Watching Pierre Hughye's film A Journey That Wasn't, I couldn't help wondering if it was a parody of Barney's apparently not-so-sui-generis genre. The music by Joshua Cody sounds exactly like Jonathan Beppler's scores for the Cremaster series. Even if it isn't a parody, it shows that this genre of art film now has as much usable convention and redundancy as Hollywood film-making.

Well, the films are very much about weird labours of Hercules. Barney always has to shin up an elevator shaft, walk along the surface of the sea, climb through a tunnel connecting two cars, climb around the proscenium arch of a theatre, etc. These scenes resemble the crossing-the-pool-with-a-candle scene in Tarkovsky's "Nostalgia" or the hauling-a-boat-over-a-mountain in Herzog's "Fitzcarraldo", and act as a sort of metaphysical "Jeux Sans Frontieres" as well as providing an epic narrative structure.

There's also the constraint that each film has to incorporate Barney's sculptures and installations. For instance, the vat of liquid vaseline on the deck of the whaler in "Drawing Restraint 9" or the sex-organs-based installation in the blimp. This is the films' raison d'etre, to turn the space-based medium that is sculpture into the the time-based medium that is film. It's in itself a "trial of Hercules", and the way Barney accomplishes it is with music, a kind of intermediate artform between space and time. Beppler's scores not only brilliant, they're hugely important to the success of the whole enterprise.

Tokion is the proud sponsor of the premiere of Drawing Restraint 9, the new film by Matthew Barney.

DRAWING RESTRAINT 9
Director Matthew Barney in person today at 6:40 & 9:30 shows!

EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT STARTS TODAY! TWO WEEKS ONLY
IFC Center
http://www.ifccenter.com

Saw DRAWING RESTRAINT 9 a couple of weeks ago. Seriously gruesome finale, but if you liked the the Cremaster series, you'll like this. Otherwise . .

. . and, yeah, I'm up for DR10 and or Cremaster 6. Anyone who can connect me for a Cremaster 5 soundtrack, get in touch. And, Matthew, how about those action figures?

After straining hard to appreciate that Guggenheim show a few years ago and a few of the films, I never again felt the slightest desire to see anything this guy did.

Besides Bjork, I'm guessing.

heh

is this guy still a thing

the Busby Berkeley style shit from C1 is something I still think bout loads.

my girlfriend's dad once accidentally kicked part of a Matthew Barney installation

he kicked a tv?

nah it was some sculpture thing, I think what he kicked was like some paper piled up on the floor or something

remember when they used to call him, "The most important artist working today"? oh my god, he is so terrible. now if they'd only banish cindy sherman to the same place

like a prestigious art gallery

i'm talking about how his reputation was once so stellar and is now the crapper--he'll continue making his merch and have plenty of buyers

is it in the crapper? (that was kind of the point of this semi-drunk revive)

I remember seeing his first(?) show at Barbara Gladstone in the early 90s and it was pretty incredible...even though his various inspirations (Serra, Nauman, Burden, Acconci) were still being worked through, it was an interesting blend of sculpture, video, and performance. He coasts along now but his work isn't really looked at by other artists and the whole enterprise of making photographs and tchotchkes to fund the films resulted in alot of junk bought by rich collectors on the basis of a big industry of boosters around him that works when they are hot but dooms them in the long run

http://static.squarespace.com/static/51117ee2e4b0e580c19e2c53/t/511473e3e4b0f297c48665f2/1360294885084/ekat%20barney%20transam.png?format=1000w

Ahhh hah awesome - is that from Khu?

Early on, at an abandoned glue factory, assembly-line machinists turned steel sheets into 16 working viols, which were played by musicians in a mournful aria before Detroit blues singer Belita Woods belted out incantations from The Egyptian Book of the Dead. The audience was then packed onto a barge, which floated down the Rouge and Detroit Rivers and eventually stumbled upon a crime-scene investigation on the shoreline. Actress Aimee Mullins played an FBI detective who also happens to be an incarnation of the goddess Isis, and soon, as four towboats loaded with musicians circled the barge, the cadaver of the Chrysler from “REN” was pulled from the river. In turns, the car’s remains were autopsied on deck, separated like mummified organs, allowing Isis the opportunity to have sex with the engine—notably filled with live snakes—before being taken into custody herself by two twin baritones. The car’s body was lifted off the barge, cut into pieces, and as the audience stood after sunset in the rain on a platform in front of a steel mill shooting sparks, the pieces of the Chrysler were eventually melted into molten liquid

I will see anything this dude does ever.

What's the deal with River of Fundament?

sounds typically insane

i admit to finding the idea of this guy's movies--or more like, sections of the movies--more pleasant than watching a whole part of the cremaster cycle :(

i watched all of cremaster over the course of about a week, it was totally fun

Best review I've seen of it yet

:)

i guess i just felt, when watching them, that the shots don't seem to have any large-scale interaction that would make them more than the sum of their parts. it's like a series of maximalist images, one after the other like a slide show. but i admit i saw them years ago.

Re: the DVD issue, these all seem to be on Youtube. Any point watching them there?

should i see 'river of fundament' in london in a couple weeks y/n

i might go on the monday. Just thinking it through.

I will see anything this dude does ever.

Just saw Fundament in Los Angeles. Thought it was excellent. Not as complex, dense, or conceptually interesting as Cremaster, but very visceral and immersive. The art-kids were down on Barney's hubris, as they always are, but truthfully I have a lot of trouble thinking of anyone else who does "blockbuster art films" like these. Are there any?

Visionary artist Matthew Barney makes his BAM debut with the world premiere screening of River of Fundament, a radical reinvention of Norman Mailer’s novel Ancient Evenings. In collaboration with composer Jonathan Bepler, Barney combines traditional modes of narrative cinema with filmed elements of performance, sculpture, and opera, reconstructing Mailer’s hypersexual story of Egyptian gods and the seven stages of reincarnation, alongside the rise and fall of the American car industry.

hahaha one of the absolute worst books, and i say that as a big mailer fan

now i want to see this, though ... how long was it?

It was 6.5 hours (including two 30-minute intermissions). So not that far off from the entire Cremaster Cycle. The Mailer thing is a pretty good send-up of his obscurantism: a novel no one has ever read, and an author who is world-famous but (at least from the perspective of academia) is hardly read nowadays, even in the United States, aside from White Negro and American Dream. And I imagine Mailer's profile is even lower in the mostly European countries where this has been screening?

Not related to River of Fundament, but I'd be really interested to learn what if anything Barney's said about Lynda Benglis. I'm finishing a paper on Benglis (undergrad, nothing fancy or probably even particularly good) and it really seems like there's a connection between her beeswax lozenges (here or here or etc) and Barney's "field emblem," especially the Vaseline version in Drawing Restraint 9.

Probably either not really or totally obvious, but fuck it, why not...

Sorry, that second link should be:
https://www.wellesley.edu/sites/default/files/assets/departments/davismuseum/object%20imgs/benglis-1991.2.jpg

Not sure I see the connection to the Field Emblem, though you may be on to something with the materials. Cremaster used Vaseline/plastic/beeswax (very explicitly in Cremaster 2), and Fundament moves over to gold leaf and metals, roughly following Benglis's trajectory. And I should maybe also add that Fundament features many gold-leaf phalluses and turds.

The general "lozenge" shape with a horizontal division at the center- it's not as apparent on all of Benglis's beeswax paintings but there's a line where she started brushing outward vertically.

I'll have to check out River of Fundament if I can.

6.5 hours?!? no thanks

saw this exhibit tday, p cool - https://artgallery.yale.edu/exhibitions/exhibition/matthew-barney-redoubt