River of Fundament to have Australian Premier at the Adelaide Festival

Shortly after it's world premier at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Matthew Barney's new film River of Fundament will open at the Adelaide Festival in Australia. The film will screen on March 2 and 3. Buy tickets here.

 

River of Fundament to Premier at Brooklyn Academy of Music

Matthew Barney's new film River of Fundament will premier at the Brooklyn Academy of Music this winter. There will be a single daily screening of the 5-hour film from February 12 - 16. The film's cast includes Paul Giamatti, Ellen Burstyn, Elaine Stritch, Maggie Gyllenhaal, vocalist Joan La Barbara, model and paralympic athlete Aimee Mullins (who starred in Cremaster 3), jazz percussionist Milford Graves, and John Buffalo Mailer (son of Norman Mailer, who appeared in Cremaster 2 and whose novel Ancient Evenings provided the basis for Barney's River of Fundament).

Cremaster Fanatic got to attend a day of the River of Fundament shoot last summer. We promise, we will post more about the film shoot soon! But, in the meantime, here are a few photos. The film looks like it will be epic!

October Matthew Barney Exhibitions / Screenings

California State University Long Beach will screen all five movies in the Cremaster Cycle next month, in conjunction with their exhibition of Matthew Barney's special effects collaborator Gabe Bartolos: Abhorrence and Obsession  (running through December 8). The screenings will be held on three consecutive Saturdays, October 5, 12, and 19. Ticket info and the full schedule are here.

Also next month, Matthew Barney's drawing exhibition The Subliming Vessel (aka La Chambre de Sublimation) will open at the Bibliotheque National de France in Paris on October 8. A version of the exhibition was previously on view at the Morgan Library in New York, but the French installation will include materials drawn from the BnF's collection that were not shown in New York. The exhibition includes approximately 80 drawings, created between 1988 and 2011 and related to projects from the Cremaster Cycle through the currently in-process River of Fundament. Barney will also create a new work in the Drawing Restraint series at the BnF, in a performance that will be filmed for future use. The exhibition runs through January 5.

Matthew Barney and Bjork Break Up!

Icelandic magazine Séð og Heyrt reports that Matthew Barney and the musician Bjork, his long time romantic partner, have parted ways, according to newsoficeland.com. Barney and Bjork have a daughter, Isadora, born in 2002.

Potrait of Matthew Barney by Elizabeth Peyton

Gawker reports a rumor that Barney is now romantically linked to "sometimes-lesbian" painter Elizabeth Peyton. Barney and Peyton had a joint exhibtion, The Blood of Two,  at the Deste Foundation in Greece in 2009. The show included several portraits of Barney by Peyton. Peyton divorced her husband, artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, in 2004.

Elizabeth Peyton, via Zimbio

Gawker recently reported that Barney and Bjork purchased a 3,000 square foot penthouse apartment at 160 Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights and were selling their West Village abode with an asking price of $1.7 million. The site now speculates, "Either they bought the Brooklyn house so that one of them could live their with their daughter, or they just wanted more room."

Matthew Barney Performance TOMORROW - Hudson, NY

Matthew Barney and composer Jonathan Bepler will lead a performance tomorrow night (Friday, September 13) at the BasilicaSoundScape art and music festival in Hudson, NY. The organizers are being secretive about the performance, but it will apparently involve all of the bands on the lineup being conducted by Bepler. The event will be held in a converted 19th century factory two hours north of New York City (take Amtrak to Hudson station). Tickets can be purchased for Friday night only or for the entire weekend, and camping is available for $30 per tent per night. We at Cremaster Fanatic won't be able to make it, but please send us photos/video if you go.

Purchase tickets HERE

Interview with festival organizer Melissa Auf der Mar HERE

Gabe Bartalos Exhibition

Matthew Barney's long time collaborator Gabe Bartalos is having an exhibition of his special effects work at the University Art Museum at California State University, Long Beach through December 8. The exhibition, titled Gabe Bartalos: Abhorrence and Obsession, includes a number of pieces Bartalos made for Barney's films, including a statue of the Loughton Candidate swathed in Vaseline from Cremaster 4, a zombie horse from Cremaster 3, and, perhaps most provocative, replicas of Matthew Barney and Bjork's genitals (and feet) from Drawing Restraint 9.

Photos by Brian Addison, via lbpost.com

River of Fundament to Premier at Park Avenue Armory in 2014

GalleristNY reports that Matthew Barney's River of Fundament will appear at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City in 2014. There are few details at the moment (and the Armory has not confirmed the news) but it will apparently be a 6-hour "operatic film project" with a "huge" cast. It is unclear whether there will be live performers or if the opera will unfold entirely on film, but there will undoubtedly be a sculptural installation in the Armory's massive drill hall.

Cremaster Fanatic was able to sit in on a day of shooting at the River of Fundament set at the Brooklyn Navy Yard a few weeks ago. We've been too busy to post our photographs, but hope to have them online soon - keep watching this space!

Matthew Barney Needs Extras For Film Shoot TOMORROW - NYC

Hey Cremaster Fanatics - this could be your dream come true. Matthew Barney is in need of volunteers to perform in a shoot for his new film River of Fundament. The shoot will take place tomorrow, June 29, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Volunteers will be positioned on a steep set of stairs and will be asked to participate vocally. Music director Jonathan Bepler will be directing the volunteers. If interested, you must be in good physical shape, willing to climb up and down the stairs (which may be slippery), and commit to a possible 10-hour workday. Lunch and water will be provided, and volunteers will receive limited edition signed & numbered T shirt. Apply here.

Matthew Barney "Subliming Vessel" at the Morgan Library

The New York Times has a nice article (with some photos) about Matthew Barney's Subliming Vessel drawing retrospective, on view at the Morgan Library in New York City through September 2. In addition to drawings and stroyboards for Barney's films, the exhibition includes a site-specific drawing by Barney, Drawing Restraint 20. "A few days before the opening, the artist, alone in a gallery, executed a wall drawing while hefting an Olympic-grade weight bar and using it as a graphic tool. The drawing remains, as do related props: the weight bar, a towel and containers of graphite powder, chalk and petroleum jelly."

The Morgan Library has posted a list of events being held in conjunction with the exhibition. A talk, originally scheduled for this evening (May 15), between Matthew Barney and Christian Scheidemann, has been rescheduled for Wednesday, May 29, at 7 pm. On May 21, Matthew Barney will speak with Paul Holdengräber at the main branch of the New York Public Library at 7 pm. Other events at the Morgan include screenings of the documentaries No Restraint on June 7 and The Cremaster Cycle: A Conversation with Matthew Barney on June 21 and gallery talks on June 1 and June 14.

Cremaster Fanatic at MASS MoCA

Cremaster Fanatic is excited to be included in the upcoming exhibition Love to Love You, an exploration of fandom in art, at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA. From the press release: "Is it possible to tell the history of popular culture, not through celebrities, sports teams, or television shows, but through their fans? The exhibition Love to Love You brings together artists who explore fandom as a unique opportunity for shared social experience and extreme personal obsession... Using a variety of artistic approaches, the artists in this exhibition explore the lived experience of fandom as both a personal and social force... Participating artists include Mark Bennett, Eric Doeringer, Elissa Goldstone, Jason Lazarus, Eva LeWitt, Patrick McDonough, and Jeremy Shaw" The exhibition opens on May 25 and runs through December, 2013

Matthew Barney Live at the New York Public Library

In conjunction with his upcoming drawing retrospective at the Morgan Library, Matthew Barney will be speaking at the New York Public Library on May 21, as part of the LIVE from the NYPL series (note: the lecture will be held at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building - aka the "main" library on 5th Ave & 42nd St. - not at the Morgan). Barney will be speaking with the New York Public Library's Paul Holdengräber. You can find more information and purchase tickets HERE. The talk will evenutally be archived on the library's web site.

Matthew Barney Drawing Retrospective and Film Premier

New York City's Morgan Library will hold a retrospective exhibition of Matthew Barney's drawings from May 10 - September 2. Titled Subliming Vessel: The Drawings of Matthew Barney, it will be the first museum exhibition dedicated to Barney's drawings, featuring approximately 100 works from his undergraduate years in the 1980's to more recent drawings inspired by Norman Mailer's novel Ancient Evenings. The exhibition will include storyboards for Barney's films and videos, sketches, magazine clippings, and postcards, plus related rare books, medieval manuscripts, and drawings from the Morgan collection selected by Matthew Barney including a 2,000-year-old Egyptian Book of the Dead, a medieval zodiac and a copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. After it's run at the Morgan, the exhibition will travel to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, where it is scheduled to open in October (with supplemental materials drawn from the Bibliothèque's collection replacing those from the Morgan's). On July 13 and 14, Barney and one of his frequent collaborators, the composer Jonathan Bepler, will discuss their work and premier selections from a new film called River of Fundament at the Manchester International Festival in the UK (Barney presented the performance The Guardian of the Veil at the festival in 2007). River of Fundament is a projected seven part film project that draws upon the thematic undercurrents of Mailer’s Ancient Evenings, combining the traditions of narrative cinema with elements of live performance, sculpture and opera. Each film will correspond to one of the seven stages of the soul’s journey from death to rebirth in accordance with Egyptian mythology. Barney plans to present River of Fundament at opera houses and theatres internationally beginning in 2014.

Happy Valentine's Day!

via Art Nerd

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!