Djed Book and Michael Leavitt's Art Army

Cremaster Fanatic ventured out for a Chelsea gallery crawl a couple of weeks ago. Of course, out main target was Matthew Barney's Djed exhibition at Gladstone Gallery. We shot some photos, but, to be honest, the official ones are much better -- there's a nice collection the on Juxtapoz web site.

We picked up a copy of a small book published in conjunction with the exhibtion. The book contains an introduction to Ancient Evenings, librettos for Acts I and II (Ren and Sekham), an essay on Egyptian mythology by Angus Cook, and, of course, tons of photos (both film stills and images of the Djed sculptures). As far as we know, this is the most complete information published to date about Barney's new series, Ancient Evenings.



We also managed to catch the final day of Michael Leavitt's Art Army Royalty exhibition at Jonathan Levine Gallery. We previously posted some photos of the Matthew Barney action figure, and it was great to see him in person. Mike was in our traveling exhibition The Matthew Barney Show a few years ago, and we're glad to see he's doing well.



The gallery was also selling a nice book with photos of all of the figures in Leavitt's Art Army. Here's a page showing some details of the Matthew Barney statue (which includes two of the Jacobin pigeons from Cremaster 5).

Performance Art at Matthew Barney's Studio

We recently discovered some videos of last Spring's performances by Jonathan Meese and Michael Rees at Matthew Barney's studio. Unfortunately, we haven't found any videos online of Barney's Guardian of the Veil performance, but you can see some of Barney's props in the background of the other performances (and a quick glimpse of Barney and Bjork in the New Art TV videos). Meese brandishes a biography of General MacArthur at one point, perhaps a prop he discovered among Barney's things at the studio.

Michael Rees - Live Life! (New Art TV)
Jonathan Meese Performance (New Art TV)
Jonathan Meese Performance (Contemporary Fine Art, Berlin -- cleaner soundtrack, less of the "scene")

Nader Sadek and Steve Tucker at Michael Steinberg Fine Art

Of possible interest to Matthew Barney fans, Egyptian artist Nader Sadek has collaborated with Steve Tucker (former frontman for the band Morbid Angel and the voice of "The Man in Black" in Cremaster 2) for the exhbition The Faceless opening September 6 at Michael Steinberg Fine Art, 526 West 26th Street, New York City.

Much like Barney's new Guardian of the Veil, Sadek's work juxtaposes the iconographies of Death Metal and Middle Eastern fundamentalism, which outsiders often associate with darkness, moon worship, and anti-Christian fervor. Says Sadek: "For a while now, I've been interested in exploring what different cultures perceive of as extreme. 'The Faceless' grows out of years of walking the crowded streets of Downtown Cairo dressed as a full-on death metal fan (i.e., long black hair, long-sleeve Morbid Angel/Deicide t-shirts, and an overall grungy look). Then, in a sort of twisted reversal, I decided to walk the streets of New York's Times Square in the black garb of a fully veiled woman."

"The intense reactions I got in each case confirmed for me the potential of this project. Those experiences inspired me to channel the popular paranoid fantasy in which the fully veiled woman is wrought from a dark death metal world, full of serpents, skulls, demons and dark mountains. I hope that by reflecting back to the audience their paranoid fantasies, which totally oversimplify the reality of Middle Eastern and death metal culture, that my work will get them toquestion their own prejudices and sense of the extreme."

Matthew Barney, Michael Rees, and Jonathan Meese

Here are some more photographs of Matthew Barney and Jonathan Meese (and a few with Michael Rees) after their performance at Barney's studio in Long Island City, New York.