07/15/2007

After numerous requests to create a mailing list for the News page, I've decided to switch this page over to Blogger. The new page can be found at http://cremasterfanatic.blogspot.com/ If you would like to subscribe to the feed, click on the icon below:

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06/19/2007

Many thanks to Cremaster Fanatic Chris, who emailed me today to let me know that Matthew Barney will be at the IFC Center in New York tomorrow evening at 7:30 to introduce a screening of his short films. He will be showing his first video work Scab Action (1988), De Lama Lamina (2004), and Drawing Restraint 13. Advance tickets were available only to IFC Center members, but any remaining seats will be made available to the general public tomorrow.

06/18/2007

I found some photographs of Barney preparing for the Guarding of the Veil performance. Apparently, the warehouse in Long Island City where the performance was filmed is Barney's new studio. The photographer refers to the white object in the photographs as a combination "car/cow vagina".

Cremaster Fanatic Sasha wrote from Venice to say the sculpture pic I posted from artnet on 06/13/2007 is not Field Dressing but rather a statue of a Chrysler Imperial. I took a closer look and Sasha is completely correct. Sasha also sent this link for information on an upcoming Matthew Barney show at the Serpentine Gallery in London.

06/14/07

Matthew Barney is featured on the cover of the current issue of L'Uomo Vogue (actually, there are two covers -- the other depicts artist Jeff Koons). There is a lengthy article about Barney (which mentions cremasterfanatic.com several times, although there are some bizarre typos in the English translation). The article includes a number of photographs of Barney with a small dog (both a living and a sculptural version), which seems to be the dog described in Jerry Saltz's description of Guarding of the Veil (the magazine cover shows the dog in the harness atop Barney's head) I've posted the article and cover photo here, I'll add more photographs soon.

The article states that Barney will be performing at a festival in Manchester, England this summer. I haven't been able to find any information about this performance, although some of Barney's photographs will be on view at the Manchester International Festival.

06/13/07

Matthew Barney is currently in Venice, Italy for the opening of The Venice Biennale and the exhibtion All in the Present Must Be Transformed: Matthew Barney and Joseph Beuys at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. There is apparently a strict photo policy at the museum, but I uncovered one photograph of Barney's Field Dressing Chryler Imperial sculpture on artnet.com

05/31/07

Some more photos of Barney's Guarding of the Veil performance in Queens are posted on the anaba blog. Also, an alert Cremaster fanatic let me know that the latest book in Francesco Bonami's Supercontemporanea series focuses on Matthew Barney. I believe this book, with text by Massimiliano Gioni, will be available in both English and Italian editions.

William Powhida, a contributer to our fan art section, currently has an exhibition at Schroeder Romero Gallery in New York. The show includes several drawings featuring Matthew Barney -- I hope to post pictures soon.

05/14/07

Matthew Wallin has created a web site for his documentary I Die Daily: The Making of the Cremaster Cycle. The site includes trailers for the film and numerous production photos of the cast and crew during the filming of the Cremaster Cycle.

04/25/07

Artnet.com has published a photograph from Barney's Guarding of the Veil performance (described in 04/18/07 post below).

The Internet Movie Database reports that Matt Wallin's documentary I Die Daily: The Making of the Cremaster Cycle has entered post production. Click here to see the poster.

04/18/07

New York Magazine reports that Matthew Barney gave a rare live performance in a warehouse in Long Island City last week. The imagery appears to be related to Cremaster 2 and 3.

The 80-minute performance included a sculpture of a smashed-to-smithereens 1967 Chrysler; Barney performing with a dog sitting in a harness on top of his head; Aimee Mullins, the famous no-legged athlete who co-starred in one of Barney's epic Cremaster films, outfitted in a full-length glittering silver ball gown on a stretcher atop the car; a small marching band in terrorist masks and what looked like IRA military uniforms; Barney methodically removing bits of the car's engine and putting them in these weird funeral urns; and, last but not least, a gigantic bull garlanded in flowers with its long, huge horns painted gold.

This bull was not only led in from outdoors by handlers dressed in tartan plaid; it was accompanied by two women, each wearing a black veil and a black sweatshirt but otherwise bottomless below the waist, and shaved. At some point, after walking around the crowd several times, each woman held her arms aloft and bent over backward until their hands touched the ground. Then, one of the girls emitted an arc of pee onto the cement floor. The other seemed to want to also but couldn't. Who could blame her? It was freezing in there.

The bull was guided to the Chrysler. It appeared as though it was being coaxed to mount the car, but after three tries, the tenders took the bull back outside. All the performers followed and that was the end of this astonishing Dionysian journey to the afterlife.

I assume the performance was filmed and will be incorporated into a future video, check back for more details.

04/05/07

Here are some photographs of the deluxe edition (limited to only 15 copies) of the new Drawing Restraint Vol IV book. These are pictures of Barney's prototype, so the final edition may vary slightly. See News 02/26/07 for more information on the book.

03/26/07

A limited-edition 112 page book about Drawing Restraint 9 and the Cremaster Cycle was published in Russia to coincide with the Second Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, which featured a retrospective of Matthew Barney's films. The book features Russian translations of Nancy Spector's essay from the Cremaster Cycle catalog and Yuko Hasegawa's essay from Volume 2 of the Drawing Restraint catalog and photographs from the six films.

03/25/07

The screening of the documentary Matthew Barney: No Restraint at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, NY originally scheduled for Feb. 14 has been rescheduled for 7:15 PM on Thursday, May 10. There will be a Q&A after the film with director Alison Chernick. Once again, the Burns Film Center has been kind enough to offer CremasterFanatic.com 5 pairs of tickets for the screening. You can email info@cremasterfanatic.com to enter to win a pair of tickets. The Burns Film Center is accessible from New York City by the Metro North commuter train.

03/02/07

The spring benefit for New York's Artists Space, to be held on April 30, will honor Matthew Barney. For more information, contact Christoper Politan at Artists Space.

02/28/07

Cremaster Fanatic Cesar was nice enough to email us some photographs of the new Drawing Restraint Volume IV book (see below) and the "From Mud, a Blade" edition Barney created for the Deutsche Guggenheim (see news of 12/16/06). Cesar reports that the unsigned version of the "From Mud, a Blade" edition is already being sold on the internet for $3,500.

02/26/07

A new Matthew Barney Book - Drawing Restraint Volume IV has just been released by JMc & GHB Editions. The book includes drawings related to Drawing Restraint 9 and the first published images from Drawing Restraint 13 - the video filmed during Barney's Occidental Guest exhibition at Gladstone Gallery that premiered at the SFMOMA Drawing Restraint exhibition. The lavish book includes facsimilies of drawings and letters printed in letterpress on Japanese paper and is being issued in an edition of 1000 copies. Of these, there is a limited edition of 50 signed and numbered copies and a deluxe edition of 15 copies, each specially bound and laid into a polyurethane box Barney has made to house the book and the accompanying signed photograph of himself dressed as General MacArthur.

02/06/07

The Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, NY will be showing the documentary Matthew Barney: No Restraint on Wednesday Feb. 14 at 7:15pm. There will be a Q&A after the film with New York Times chief art critic Michael Kimmelmann. CremasterFanatic.com has 5 pairs of tickets to give away for the screening -- email info@cremasterfanatic.com if you would like to win a pair of tickets. Please only enter if you will be able to attend the screening (the Burns Film Center is accessible from New York City by the Metro North commuter train).

02/04/07

The Hirshhorn Museum has posted a video of Matthew Barney's "Meet the Artist" lecture from January 31, 2007.

02/01/07

According to the fourfour blog, a high-quality bootleg of Drawing Restraint 9 is now available on the internet.

01/30/07

The Gene Siskel Theater at the Art Institute of Chicago is presenting a Matthew Barney retroscpective during the month of February. Matthew Barney: Cremaster and Beyond will include all five Cremaster films, Drawing Restraint 9, and the documentary Matthew Barney: No Restraint. The screenings run from February 2 - 26. Oddly, Cremaster 1, 2, 4, and 5 screen during the first week (although not in the order they were produced) but you'll have to wait until the end of the month to see Cremaster 3.

A new Dolby 5.1 / surround sound remastering of Bjork's Drawing Restraint 9 soundtrack is now available. It can be purchased as a dual-disc (paired with the original mix of the album) from One Little Indian (UK) or as part of the Surrounded box set.

Cult video purveyor lostsilver.com is selling what are presumably unauthorized copies of the Cremaster films (the site claims that, "These films have been donated to the public domain or the original copyright owner has granted their intent to allow us to bring them to you"). Barney and Barbara Gladstone usually clamp down on this kind of thing pretty quickly, so the DVDs probably won't be available for long. Unfortunately for Bjork fans, they don't carry Drawing Restraint 9.