Cremaster 5Cremaster 4
Matthew Barney, 42 mins, USA, 1995, 35mm, Courtesy: Accent Entertainment.
In this surreal, slapstick comedy, the Loughton Candidate (Barney), a flame-haired Satyr, slowly taps his way through an eroding floor as competing colour-coded motorcycle teams set off in opposite directions to circle the Isle of Man.
The first film (produced) in the cycle adheres most explicitly to the project's biological model with its rabid testicular symbolism.
Cremaster 5
Matthew Barney, 55 mins, USA, 1997, 35mm. Courtesy: Accent Entertainment.
The cycle's movement towards descension is fulfilled in this romantic tragedy involving The Queen of Chain (Ursula Andress), her Diva, Magician and Giant (all played by Barney), attendants of ambiguous gender and species and a bevy of live pigeons. The lush spectacle is set in an extravagant nineteenth century opera house and accompanied by the Budapest Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra.
