Because of it, this space becomes something like an arena, with big screens hanging overhead at its center like those that loom over the court at NBA games. Its mise-en-scène, a dazzling red AstroTurf-like carpet that acts as the video’s football field, is left intact in Barney’s studio for viewers to lounge on. This is a triumphant return to form for Barney, whose icy gaze has rarely felt so personal.Īcross the installation’s 60 minutes-you will want to stay for all of them-oozy fluids fly, rabid football players scream, athletic bodies twist and turn, and a trench built in Barney’s studio gradually fills with muddy water, the sole reminder of all the shit and vomit that pervaded his last big swing in New York, the five-hour slog River of Fundament (2014). With Secondary, Barney returns to what made him famous during the ’90s-sticky substances, surrealist rituals, erotically tinged body horror-while also meeting the moment by exploring death as a form of spectacle. Yet it is so hypnotic that even those repelled by Barney’s machismo will fall under its spell. Set across several screens, the installation would be easy to write off as another macho, pretentious moving-image work from an artist who dabbles in them. Secondary, which runs at Barney’s studio in Long Island City through June 25, is his epic answer to that inquiry. The sport thrives on violence and bodily collapse, and yet, Barney, like millions of other Americans, is drawn to watching it. CTE, as that malady is known for short, is becoming increasingly common among football players. cat., Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York, 1995, n.p.).Monument Wars in the U.K., Matthew Barney-Installed Clock Goes Dark, and More: Morning Links from January 19, 2021Įven that protective gear didn’t help the real-life person Barney is playing: Ken Stabler, a quarterback for the Raiders who, many years after his retirement, was diagnosed with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, a brain disease caused by trauma to the head. Lingwood, Matthew Barney: Cremaster 4, exh. The narrative fades away an instant before man and machine, sheep and satyr collide - before they crash at the point of union, consummate the holy grail of desire" (J. Into the body of the film, Barney has incorporated elements from televised sport, horror film, heraldic drama and biological drawing to create an internalized landscape of competing drives. As the curator James Lingwood suggests, this work belongs to first generation for whom video games and movie special effects had become the norm, and who often felt that an invented world was often a more stimulating than the real one: " Cremaster 4 is a drama of unresolved dualities, and the energies they produce. The obvious sexual symbolism of these orifices, combined with the sexless bodies of the fairies, establishes the theme of the rest of the film as an increasing number of metaphors develop into a narrative which begins to explore the fundamental biological nature of life.īorne out of the visual style and imagination of a post- StarTrek generation, Cremaster 4: Valve brings together an amalgam of modern and ancient symbolism to convey its fantasy-like narrative. As he combs his hair, Barney reveals the openings from which his large horns will eventually grow. The four images that comprise Cremaster 4: Valve appear in the opening sequence of the film, as the satyr character is unveiled. Barney, The Cremaster Cycle, ).Ĭontinuing the overall theme that has defined much of the artist's oeuvre, Barney uses this film to explore our reliance on symbolism to explain how our world works. The other characters in Barney's alternate world are a pair of racing motorcycle teams and a trio of androgynous fairies who, in Barney's exegesis of the work, "occupy the three narrative fields inhabited by the Candidate and the two racing teams" (M. The film's central character, the Loughton Candidate (played by Barney), is a satyr with two sets of impacted sockets in his head-four nascent horns, which will eventually grow into those of the mature, Loughton Ram, an ancient breed native to the island. Set on the Isle of Man and closely linked to its Celtic mythology, the film combines ancient stories with contemporary events (the island's world famous T-T motorcycle race) to produce an enigmatic work that examines the nature of reality and existence. The penultimate installment of his five ground-breaking films, Matthew Barney's Cremaster 4: Valve continues his exploration of post-human mythologies and has come to be regarded as the work which most closely matches the entire project's central theme-an exploration of the fundamental nature of life.
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