Matthew Barney: Drawing Restraint Vol. 2

by Matthew Barney

The definitive user's guide and then some to Matthew Barney's epic five-part epic film series, he Cremaster Cycle is filled with hundreds of Barney's fantastical images and surveys the project, which uses the biological model of sexual difference as its conceptual departure point. Three essays by Barney experts articulate the series' diverse themes and explore the artist's innovative aesthetic vocabulary; interviews with key collaborators, a composer, costume designer, make-up artist, technicians and actors reveal his working process. A trailblazing essay by Curator of Contemporary Art Nancy Spector charts Barney's work from the 1990s to the present and provides critical insights into the aesthetic vocabulary of his five "Cremaster" films, while Neville Wakefield's "Cremaster Glossary" illuminates the films' most far-flung references with citations from sources as diverse as Freud's psychoanalytic studies, Mormon law and lore, and hardcore music fanzines. In addition to stills from the five films—including the final episode, Cremaster 3, the book features related sculptures, photographs, drawings and storyboards. For anyone intrigued by the Wagner of contemporary art, this is an atlas to his enticingly hypnotic worlds. Barney himself collaborated on all aspects of this extraordinary publication, including the selection of over 700 images, most of them never before published.

Genres: Art

163 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 2006

About the author

Matthew Barney is an American artist who works in sculpture, photography, drawing and film. His early works were sculptural installations combined with performance and video. Between 1994 and 2002 he created the Cremaster Cycle, a series of five feature-length films described by Jonathan Jones in The Guardian as "one of the most imaginative and brilliant achievements in the history of avant-garde cinema."

Reviews

[Carah Naseem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scary genius. THICK semiotic beasts, Barney's works. Too bad you don't get any of his words on them, save one quote. Wonderful, though. Cleared up things I didn't pick up on in the Drawing Restraint 9 film.