Page 7 - 50.La Biennale di Venezia issue of World of Art Magazine

petroleum wax. member of Slayer, is playing a drum solo to the sound of swarming bees.
Between 1990 and 1991, Barney also A man shrouded by bees with the voice of Steve Tucker, lead vocalist of
Morbid Angel, growls into a telephone. Collectively these figures allude
created video, photography, and sculptural to Johnny Cash, who is said to have called Gilmore on the night of his
pieces such as The Jim Otto Suite (1991) execution in response to the convict’s dying wish.
(with subsections titled OTTOblow and Barney depicts Gilmore ‘s murder of a Mormon gas station attendant in
AUTOblow), which feature fictional both sculptural and dramatic forms. Inferring that Gilmore killed out of
characters who function as metaphors a kind of perverse longing for union with his girlfriend, Nicole Baker, he
for thematic motifs that run throughout represents their relationship through two conjoined Cars: the blue and the
white 1966 Mustangs that they coincidentally both owned. These vehicles
the work: football hero Jim Otto and the are connected via a honeycomb tunnel, which joins the front seats into
“Character of Positive Restraint,” in either one channel and traverses the pump island of the filling station where
the guise of escape artist Harry Houdini they are parked. In the murder sequence, Gilmore shoots his victim in the
or the feminine Jim Blind, who appears back of the head on the floor of the gas station bathroom. This act sets in
in drag. These works, along with those motion the trial and verdict that will condemn him to death, a sentence he
listed above, were featured in Barney’s embraces despite all efforts to overturn it. Barney stages the judgment of
first solo museum exhibition organized by Gilmore in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s elaborate, pipe-organ-studded
hall. Gilmore welcomes death, refusing to appeal his sentence and opting
the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for execution by firing squad, in a literal interpretation of the Mormon belief
in 1991-1992. that blood must be shed in order for a sinner to obtain salvation.
Gilmore’s execution is staged as a prison rodeo in an arena cast entirely
In 1992, Barney introduced fantastical from salt in the middle of the flooded Bonneville Salt Flats. A posse of
creatures into his work, a gesture mounted state troopers begins the proceedings by parading through the
that presaged the vocabulary of his arena. Gilmore is lowered Onto a Brahman bull; the gates are opened
and he rides to his death. In Barney’s interpretation of the execution,
subsequent narrative films. The multi- Gilmore was less interested in attaining Mormon redemption than in
channel video installation OTTOshaft performing a chronological two-step that would return him to the space
(1992), which premiered at Documenta of his alleged grandfather, Houdini, with whom he identified the notion of
IX, Kassel, Germany (1992), features absolute freedom through self-transformation. Seeking escape from his
fate, he chose death in an act of ultimate self-will. Gilmore’s metaphoric
bands of dueling bagpipers. And Drawing
Restraint 7 (1993), which was shown transportation back to the turn of the century is rendered in a dance
sequence featuring the Texas two-step. The film ends in the foggy environs
in that year’s Biennial Exhibition at the of the Columbian Exposition hall where Houdini has just completed his
Whitney Museum of American Art, New magic act. He is approached by Gilmore’s future grandmother Baby Fay La
York, and Aperto ‘93, 45th Venice Biennale, Foe who will seduce him, an act that sets in motion the circular narrative Guggenheim
includes mythological satyrs, who battle of Cremaster 2.
for supremacy while riding in and out of
Manhattan in a limousine.
CREMASTER 3,2002 (3:0 1:59)
Written and Directed by Matthew Barney
In 1994, Barney began work on his Produced by Barbara Gladstone and Matthew Barney
epic CREMASTER cycle, a five-part Director of Photography: Peter Strietmann
film project accompanied by related Music composed by Jonathan Bepler
sculptures, photographs, and drawings. Associate Producer: Chelsea Romersa
Production Design: Matthew D. Ryle
Eschewing chronological order, Barney Starring Richard Serra, Aimee Mullins and Matthew Barney
first produced CREMASTER 4 (1994),
which premiered with an exhibition of CREMASTER 3 forms the spine of the cycle. As the central chapter of
related works at the Fondation Cartier the five installments, it functions like a double mirror, reflecting those
pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris, in March before and anticipating those to follow. Set in New York City, the film
1995. Drawings and photographs from weaves an account of the construction of the Chrysler Building, which is
in itself a character-host to inner, antagonistic forces at play for access to
CREMASTER 4 were exhibited in the 1995
the process of (spiritual) transcendence. These factions find form in the
Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum struggle between Hiram Abiff or the Architect (played by Richard Serra),
of American Art, New York. The second and the Entered Apprentice (played by Matthew Barney), who are both
completed film, CREMASTER 1 (1995), working on the building. They are reenacting the Masonic myth of Hiram
premiered at the New York Video Festival Abiff, purported architect of Solomon’s Temple, who possessed knowledge
in October 1995. Both films were also of the mysteries of the universe. The murder and resurrection of Abiff are
reenacted during Masonic initiation rites as the culmination of a three-part
included in Barney’s solo exhibition PACE
process through which a candidate progresses from the first degree of
CAR for the HUBRIS PILL at Museum Entered Apprenticeship to the third of Master Mason.
WORLD of ART 7