Cre-- m-- aster

The Cremaster

Matthew Barney

Long time ago, I was flipping through my high school art teacher’s magazine. Then I saw a very weird photo: a man who had goat nose and ears, orange hair with pale skin and blue eyes. It or the creature wasn’t a human nor an animal. Coming his hair, there was him and other ladies all dressed up formally in white. I spent more time looking at the picture because I had no idea what it was about. Of course, I didn’t know it was the same artist who created series of The Cremaster and I would watch the actual video at EMAC class. Yes, Matthew Barney.

I Youtube-d Matthew Barney and I found few interesting comments such as “too full of direction. Doesn’t work at all (jane******),” “I'm interested in Barney's aesthetic, but not because it's always genuine or good to me. It's just... I can't put my finger on it, but at times it feels so forced (madsket****), ” or “Seriously. What the hell (Ringshado****).” Basically you love Barney’s work or hate it.

At first I didn’t like The Cremaster 3 at all because I couldn’t understand. When I read or see things that are too out of my thinking system, I feel uncomfortable and confused. All I could think comfortably was vivid visual elements of the video. Main character’s pale skin with pink hair, holding something like a clothe with bleeding mouth, tap dancers, leopard woman… I have to say I never ever had seen anything like that in my life. But I couldn’t find any logical sequence or story. Random editing, rock band screaming and a guy trying to do something with wax, all of these nothing made sense to me.

After a little while, reviewing Barney’s video and short research did change my mind. The Creamaster was full of symbolism, metaphor, some kind of mythology too. I wish I could watch the video again to at least try to understand a bit of what Barney was expressing.

Barney’s music, visual, and spatial art are overwhelming, indeed.
Yes, now I understand why that random art magazine had a huge page distributed to him.