For the first time in Sydney, the Art Gallery of New South Wales will screen Matthew Barney's legendary The Cremaster Cycle. Eight years in the making, The Cremaster Cycle is destined to be the one of cinematic events of the year. Acclaimed around the world as brilliantly imaginative and visually stunning, all five films will be shown together in brand new 35 mm prints.
The Cremaster Cycle
Art Gallery of New South Wales, 6 March & 20 March
" MATTHEW BARNEY'S BEAUTIFUL CREMASTER CYCLE IS THE FIRST GREAT FUSION
OF ART AND CINEMA SINCE UN CHIEN ANDALOU. " The Guardian
"MATTHEW BARNEY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT AMERICAN ARTIST OF HIS
GENERATION..... ART IS SUPPOSED TO STICK IN YOUR MIND, AND SOMETIMES YOUR
CRAW. BARNEY'S FILMS DO BOTH." The New York Times
For the first time in Sydney, as part of an exclusive Australian
premiere season, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, in conjunction
with the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and Accent Film
Entertainment, will screen Matthew Barney's legendary The Cremaster
Cycle.
Eight years in the making, The Cremaster Cycle is destined to be the
one of cinematic events of the year. Acclaimed around the world as
brilliantly imaginative and visually stunning, all five films will be
shown together in brand new 35 mm prints.
"Barney's visionary narrative films use a richly evocative cinematic
language, which draws on Celtic mythologies, the American musical, the
gothic western and film noir. Each film is entirely self-contained
while cumulatively they form an elaborate allegory about sexual
differentiation, " said Wayne Tunnicliffe, Curator of Contemporary
Australian Art.
Barney writes and directs each Cremaster film, and often plays one or
more roles. The Cremaster Cycle was recently shown, along with the
sculptures, photographs and objects that accompany each film, at the
Guggenheim Museum, New York.
CREMASTER 1 (1995, 40 mins)
In twin hovering Goodyear blimps, a platinum starlet builds geometric
patterns from red and green grapes mirrored by Busby Berkeley-style
showgirls on the blue-astroturf field below.
CREMASTER 2 (1999, 79 mins)
"A sprawling, hallucinatory quiltwork of gorgeously shot scenes and
ominous organ music, all slowly unfolding a circuitous plot involving
Gary Gilmore (Matthew Barney), copulating bees, members of the Gilmore
clan, Houdini (Norman Mailer), a Brahma bull, the Mormon Tabernacle and
landscapes ranging from Utah’s blindingly bright salt flats to the
glacial ice fields of Jasper, Canada... A world as strange as Lewis
Carroll's." (Time)
CREMASTER 3 (2002, 180 mins)
Barney's The Entered Apprentice faces off against Chrysler Building
architect Hiram Abiff (played by sculptor Richard Serra) in the Art
Deco landmark, while battling punk bands, Rockette-like chorines, and a
half-cheetah woman (Aimee Mullins) as he scales the atrium of the
Guggenheim Museum in an interlude. "Endlessly fascinating... Barney's
most hypnotic work yet." (New York Magazine)
CREMASTER 4 (1994, 42 mins)
"Flame-Haired Satyr The Loughton Candidate (Matthew Barney) slowly taps
his way through an eroding floor into the sea, as competing colour
coded motorcycle teams set off in opposite directions to circle the
Isle of Man."
"A surreal, slapstick fantasy; sexuality turned into a bizarre
vaudeville." (New York Times)
CREMASTER 5 (1997, 55 mins)
Ursula Andress (Dr No) stars as the Queen of Chain, the sole audience
for a lush operatic spectacle performed by the Budapest Opera and
Philharmonic Orchestra within a grand 19th century opera house,
accompanied by fairies, a magician (Barney on horseback), various
attendants of unspecified gender and species, and a bevy of live
pigeons. "A ravishing stretch of cinema... rich and quite, quite
strange." (Artforum)
DATES & SESSION TIMES
Saturday 6 & 20 March 2004
10.30am - 12.30pm Cremaster 1 & 2
1.30pm - 4.30pm Cremaster 3
5.00pm - 7.00pm Cremaster 4 & 5
Individual sessions $12/$10concession
Day pass $30/$25 concession.
Bookings Telephone: (02) 9225 1878
MEDIA INFORMATION
Virginia Lovett, Press Office
Telephone (02) 9225 1791 or 0417 662 749
To coincide with the national tour of The Cremaster Cycle, Ãccent Film
Entertainment will simultaneously release a fully interactive,
multi-angle limited edition DVD of The Order from Cremaster 3 in a
deluxe digi-pack DVD. The Order is a dizzying mirror of the fantastical
CREMASTER CYCLE and features Matthew Barney as a tartan-clad apprentice
seeking Masonic redemption in a death-defying race to the top of New
York's landmark Guggenheim Museum. Available exclusively in Sydney at
the Art Gallery of New South Wales bookshop.
Image: Matthew Barney Cremaster 3: Mahabyn 2002 (detail). Courtesy of ther artist and Barbara Gladstone Gallery
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery Road
Sydney