Matthew Barney

Matthew Barney was born in 1967 in San Francisco, California, and lives and works in New York. He is an artist who uses all possible mediums for his artistic practice: video, installations, performance, drawing, sculpture, and photography. From the beginning, the human being, as an evolving machine, has been the cornerstone around which his poetics has developed. The photograph in the Iannaccone collection is part of the Cremaster series, one of the first and most interesting results of the research and studies undertaken by the American artist. The Cremaster saga began in 1994 and continued without adhering to a numerical progression; in ’94, Cremaster 4 was released, followed by Cremaster 1 in ’95, Cremaster 5 in ’97, Cremaster 2 in ’99, and finally, Cremaster 3 in 2002. This progression is not coincidental; according to Barney's intent, the numerical sequence 4-1-5-2-3 contains an evident symmetry constructed around the number five in the central position, which also results from the sum of the numerical pairs on the right and left.

The epicenter of the journey that leads to sexual distinction is the cremaster, an involuntary muscle of the male genital apparatus that covers and protects the testicles, the name of which (from the Greek kremastér) means "that which holds up," referring to its function of regulating testicular movements; in relation to external stimuli, it acts on the scrotum, causing it to lower or rise to control temperature. Barney, a former medical student, uses this process of distinction and sexual affirmation as both a personal and universal metaphor. The mythical journey of the Cremaster Cycle unfolds in a dreamlike, visionary, fantastic, mad, and delirious world that traverses the historical and artistic evolution of contemporary social and cultural characteristics.

A wide variety of characters created by Barney's visionary mind populate the settings of the five episodes, all somehow connected to the artist's life. They are ambiguous beings, lacking any genital organs that could define them, who try to remain insubstantial and indistinct; their aim is to delay as much as possible the moment when sexual identity surfaces and defines them. Within the structure of the cycle, Matthew Barney embodies most of the figures that move through dreamlike atmospheres in a narrative sequence that seems to lack logical coherence. The fifth film of the Cremaster saga is the most intense and poetic work of this cycle, which includes videos and photographs by the artist and represents the concluding moment of the process of sexual distinction formation.

The backdrop is the city of Budapest, which gave birth to the magician Houdini, a recurring character in Barney's videos, portrayed as a superhuman creature worthy of a position in the artist's multifaceted Olympus. The cathartic moment is embodied by Barney himself in the role of the character Her Giant, the protagonist of the print in the collection. Her Giant, photographed like a Botticellian Venus after emerging from the waters, is surrounded by white Jacobin birds, which in the video place a garland on his scrotum, finally emphasizing the sexual distinction. Her Giant represents the culmination and apex of the creation of a world centered around Man, according to various forms.