The Barney Body

The most spectacular video art performer I can think of is Matthew Barney. But it would be injurious to define him only with those two words. He is beyond one form, closer to Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk, the modern "enfant terrible", by some called the single revival of baroque. In this case one Barney would be enough to resurrect a whole epoch. The American Newsweek called him the representative of androgyny and new decadence. He is the only living artist who had a retrospective exhibition in the prestigious Guggenheim Museum Soho. He uses his body as instrument of creative act, exposing it to extreme conditions. Fighting with his weaknesses, straining the will enlocked in the Barney Body, he beats inconceivable limits and opposes matter.

What fascinates me the most is his best known Cremaster Cycle. This is a series of five films produced with amazing precision in a enormous scale. Though they can only be seen on screenings chosen by the author himself, usually in art galleries. There are very few copies of it and one limited edition of the third part which is possible to purchase. You can't actually say anything about the films, as they generate their own visual language through which Barney creates his mythology. There is no story whatsoever, it's more like watching someone's hallucinations, so disturbing and inspirating that you want the hours spent in front of the screen to last forever. Barney comments that through this cycle he is trying to find the space of freedom, place between form and its lack, catching the moment, in which reality isn't precisely defined yet.

To take a closer look on the Cremaster cycle, you can visit the official website or watch some fragments of the work, as few of them floating in the web. But it is harmfull for the piece, unless you have a huge white wall to screen it on. Here is the official trailer: