ZKM Events :: Matthew Barney :: »Cremaster Cycle«

[Heike Borowski]

ZKM_Events

Matthew Barney: Cremaster Cycle

Saturday/Sunday 11/12 October 2003

The »Cremaster Cycle« [35 mm, colour and Dolby SR] can be seen in full 
for the first time at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe 
during the opening weekend of the »fast forward« exhibition 
[http://www.zkm.de/goetz].

Matthew Barney [b. 1967 in San Francisco] has made a name for himself on 
the international art scene thanks to his use of very idiosyncratic 
imagery full of metaphors and symbols. Typical of his films and 
sculptures are hybrid, mythical narrative structures and motifs that 
give rise to a complicated and self-contained aesthetic system.
In the »Cremaster Cycle«, a five-part film epic, Barney produces a 
starkly monumentalised work of fantasy arranged in a stringent symmetry 
that incorporates such legendary figures as the American football star, 
Jim Otto, the escape artist, Harry Houdini, and the dual murderer, Gary 
Gilmore.

Cremaster 4, the first work in the series, dates from 1994. Deliberately 
avoiding any chronological order, Barney then shot Cremaster 1 [1995], 
Cremaster 5 [1997] and Cremaster 2 [1999]. Cremaster 3 [2001], which 
lasts almost three hours, has seldom been shown in public. Cremaster – a 
medical term for the muscle that lifts or lowers the testicles depending 
on the ambient temperature – is a symbol of the conflict with will power 
that cannot control the muscle. Barney invents surreal imagery of 
extravagant abundance and strict choreographic precision to illustrate 
this. Intense images focusing on the body and lavish costumes are used 
to blend themes from sport, medicine, biology, sexuality, history and 
mythology. Carefully selected scenes, such as the opulent Gellert Baths 
in Budapest and the Boise sports stadium in Idaho, and sculptural stage 
props made from unusually sensuous materials, such as wax, vaseline and 
salt, like the copy of a famous bear from the Chrysler Building made of 
vaseline and a raised arena made of salt, create a metaphorical universe 
that depicts the system of organic reproduction.

Saturday 11 October :: ZKM Media Theatre
A ticket for the Media Museum plus the Special Exhibition ensures free 
entry to the films [films alone: € 3.10]

14.00 to 16.00 hrs

CREMASTER 1 [1995, 40:30]
CREMASTER 2 [1999, 79:00]

19.00 to 22.00 hrs

CREMASTER 3 [2001, 03:01:59:03]
[I: 01:33:02, II: 01:28:56]

Sunday 12 October :: ZKM Media Theatre
A ticket for the Media Museum plus the Special Exhibition ensures free 
entry to the films [films alone: € 3.10]

16.00 to 18.00 hrs

CREMASTER 4 [1994, 42:16]
CREMASTER 5 [1997, 54:30]