Matthew Barney Floats Norman Mailer's House Down The East River

The Wall Street Journal has published a lengthy article about the filming of Matthew Barney's River of Fundament. The film is the latest installment in Barney's Ancient Evenings series, based on a book Norman Mailer about the Egyptian afterlife. Barney began working on the sculptural components for River of Fundament last August in his Long Island City, Queens studio and has been filming in New York City. Perhaps the most remarkable element is a life-sized floating replica of Mailer's four-story Brooklyn brownstone. The house has been filled with items borrowed from Mailer's actual home. A tugboat towed the building down the East River from Barney's studio to the Brooklyn Bridge for a film shoot, where an actress playing Norman Mailer's widow sang Walt Whitman's poetry to the bridge.

The cast of River of Fundament includes well-known actors Paul Giamatti and Maggie Gyllenhaal, as well as paralympic athlete Aimee Mullins (who appeared as the Entered Novitiate in Barney's Cremaster 3) and avant-garde vocalist Joan La Barbara. In addition, Norman Mailer's son John Buffalo Mailer (pictured above) will appear in the film, playing a reincarnation of his father. The younger Mailer told the WSJ, "I've been lucky enough to know two geniuses in my life. My father is one and Matthew Barney is the other. I think my dad is up there dancing a jig he's so happy about how Matthew has taken the ball and run with this." In addition to Mailer's floating home, props for the film have included a cow carcass containing a surprise fetus, rotting pigs, two 12,000-pound blocks of salt and a gold 1979 Trans Am that was plunged into Newtown Creek (a polluted industrial waterway separating Brooklyn and Queens). Shooting will pause for the winter, but a large-scale performance in New York is planned for next spring.

Drawing Restraint 19 Skateboard

Matthew Barney has teamed up with Juxtapoz Magazine to produce a new Drawing Restraint 19 skateboard. The board features a graphite nose, so the rider creates a drawing as s/he skates.

Juxtapoz recruited skateboarding legend Lance Mountain to be the first (and, so far, only) one to ride the board at Ride It Sculpture Park in Detroit as part of a series of artistic interventions in the neighborhood.

A special limited run of 1,000 copies of the February issue of Juxtapoz have been published with a special Barney/Mountain cover. Juxtapoz also created a video documenting Mountain's time in Detroit. More info here.

Visit Matthew Barney's Studio!

The Tate Gallery in England has teamed up with The Ultimate Travel Company to offer a trip to New York City that includes a visit to Matthew Barney's studio. The trip, called New York: The Performance of Style, runs for five days from November 7 – 12 and costs £2,345 ($3,788) per person (for a double-occupancy room in the Meatpacking district). In addition to Matthew Barney's studio, travelers will visit the studio of artist Sarah Sze, the Whitney Musueum, PS1, MoMA, and the Brooklyn Museum. The Tate does not promise that Matthew Barney will be present during the studio visit, but this rare behind-the-scenes look should please any Cremaster fanatic!

Matthew Barney Previews Ancient Evenings Film In Amsterdam

Blend reports that Matthew Barney and composer Jonathan Bepler have been working on a residency in conjunction with Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum and the Holland Festival. The two recently presented a rough cut preview of the film Ancient Evenings at the Frascati theater. "Ancient Evenings consists of seven acts, which mirror the seven stages of the soul in Egyptian mythology as it passes from the deceased body to rebirth. In the novel this progression is told through a man who has reincarnated three times. Barney and Bepler have replaced the man with the body of a car. The car will pass on through three generations as well: from Chrysler Crown Imperial 1967 to Pontian Firebird Trans Am 1979, which will end up as a Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor 2001. The eventual film will be the result of taped performances in front of an audience, as well as material directly shot in front of the camera." The rough cut of the film, "opens with beautiful long shots of bubbling mud, parts of gold leaf moving in the wind, desolated factories and a man waiting in a car. The car is outside of a church, which is entered by two detectives. In the church there is the body of an American muscle car, which is thoroughly examined by the detectives, as if it were a crime scene or an autopsy. Suddenly the man who has been waiting enters the church. He moves to the altar, where an ambulance has been placed. The ambulance is covered with gold leaf on the inside, and has a man dressed in a golden straitjacket. The man is been put into the car with his arms strapped to his body and a blindfold on, as well as several top hats. As a large Egyptian wand is pierced through the car window, the car starts to drive. The detectives escort it to a bridge, where it dives in the water." Barney also showed a clip from the Khu performance recorded live in Detroit last year. Blend reports, "In front of an audience on a large boat... A huge body bag containing a car is being pulled from the river onto the boat. Various detectives on the scene are singing it to, and in a small tugboats circling around the bigger boat violin- and trumpet players are making music." Following the screening, Barney and Bepler brought live performers and opera singers (with whom they have been working during their residency) onto the stage. "It is clear that this is not your average theatre performance... The opera singers and musicians are playing a seemingly chaotic manner. Improvisations are sometimes brilliant, sometimes messy. The amazing British voice actor Phil Minton is great, singer (and actor in the film) Jennie Knaggs sings wonderfully and opera star Joan la Barbara does an interesting act."

Matthew Barney Blingee

keeley hawes and matthew macfadyen pictures

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