Review - Matthew Barney (Art and Narrative)

“Matthew Barney’s five-part Cremaster cycle is a self-enclosed aesthetic system … a polymorphous organism of an artwork, continuously shifting guises and following its own eccentric set of rules”

Such is an apt descriptor of Barney’s multi-faceted body of works, including those both pre and post Cremaster cycle; Barney’s Guernica. The Cremaster cycle, Barney’s most instantly recognizable work, is a series of five self-referencing films, totaling approximately seven hours. Heavily laden in symbolism and socio-historical references, the films each feature a plethora of sub plots and allegories within the overall concept of the work; the resistance towards inevitable gender division.

Barney’s primary focus throughout his sculpture, installation, video and performative works is the human body and the processes through which it undergoes in order to differentiate itself into one of two genders, or in a narcissistic effort to self-fulfill; to close off the body as a singular detached entity. The Cremaster cycle, takes its title from the cremaster muscle; responsible for the initial descending or retracting of the testes determining human gender, a singular embryonic movement which Barney considers deeply relevant in terms of human physiological and societal development.

The narrative manifests itself in the Cremaster cycle not only in the re-telling of singularized elements of history, but literally in the way of text-like character development and the formation of allegories within the larger pastiche of the work; an assemblage of inseparable visual symbols speaking simultaneously about themselves and their larger framework. In a truly narrative sense, Barney maintains the work as a whole and attains closure in the creation of a central complexity; the event of gender division, that is finally resolved in gender separation and death. However, Barney subverts the traditionalism of his narrative structure in the production and release order of the films; 4, 1, 5, 2, 3, jarring time and comprehension for the viewer, enhanced only by the lack of auditory didacticism within the work; the films having only twelve total lines of dialogue.

Nancy Spector, author of Matthew Barney: The Cremaster Cycle articulates the chronological narrative progression of the films, noting Barney’s conceptual deviation; “Cremaster 1 represents the most “ascended” state, Cremaster 5 the most “descended”… as the cycle evolved … other paradigms, such as biography, history and codes of behavior, came to the fore as vessels of Barney’s narrative constructs.” Among a vast collective of historical tangents, Barney explores and performs the depiction of US murderer Gary Gilmore’s execution, the role of freemasonry in the 1930’s and Harry Houdini.

Endnotes

Nancy Spector. Matthew Barney: The Cremaster cycle. (New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2002). 4.


2 Nancy Spector. Matthew Barney: The Cremaster cycle. (New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2002). 30.

Bibliography

Spector, Nancy. Matthew Barney: The Cremaster cycle. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2002.

Heartney, Eleanor. Art and Today. London: Phaidon. 2008.

Image References

Barney, Matthew. Cremaster 2 (production photo). 1999. Reproduced from http://www.mediaartnet.org/works/cremaster2/ (Accessed on May 4th 2009)

Barney, Matthew. Cremaster 1 (still-frame). 1995-6. Film still. Dimensions variable. Barbara Gladstone Gallery. Reproduced from Tate Online http://www.tate.org.uk/magazine/issue2/barney_image1.htm (Accessed on May 4th 2009)

Barney, Matthew. Cremaster Suite. 1994-2002. Detail from set of 26 color prints with
self-lubricating plastic frames. 111.8 x 86.4 cm. Albright-Knox Gallery. Reproduced from http://www.albrightknox.org/acquisitions/acq_2003/Barney.html (Accessed on May 4th 2009)