A strange male character with a strikingly white chroma stands in the center of a blossoming flower. On each arm stand three perched white birds with odd feather arrangements. The mans eyes have a reddish tint surrounding them, making him look ill or deceased. His mustache is brown around his lips and slowly turns to the striking white as it curls downwards to his chin. A silver crown adorned with shells and trinkets sits atop his head. There are numerous colorful ribbons wrapped around his penis in a tight bundle. The pastel ribbons gracefully twist from the tight bundle around his testicles and flow down the budding flower. Who is this man? Why is he standing in a flower? And why does he have ribbons attached to his penis?
Matthew Barney is a very important American Artist. His work is hard to place into traditional art categories. His film series Cremaster “can seem ingeniously complicated or nonsensical, depending on one's inclination. Suffice it to say that it is a mix of autobiography, history and private symbolism (Kimmelman).” His films are elaborate displays of color, sound and scenery. The imagery is almost too much to absorb. The New York Times Magazine suggests that “A good way to think about Barney's work is probably just to accept its ambiguity, which, in a sense, is his basic point (Kimmelman)” In an interview Matthew Barney stated that “Art is unresolved, otherwise it is uninteresting (Kimmelman)”. Barney’s characters within his films are ambiguous. Many of the extravagant costumes discourage the viewer from attaching a gender. As the Cremaster series evolved, “the films also became visually more deluxe, with saturated colors and fabulous costumes, despite budgets that, while growing, were nonetheless nonexistent by Hollywood standards (Kimmelman)”
Gothamist. Web. 2 Feb 2010.
Kimmelman, Michael. "The Importance of Matthew Barney." New York Times Magazine October 10, 1999: n. pag. Web. 2 Feb 2010.
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