Matthew Barney: Cremaster 3 Book

One of the most interesting artists to emerge in the 1990s, and hands-down… the most interesting when it comes to the way he works with video. --Jerry Saltz, Barney is the most important American artist of his generation… The tendency when talking about Barney is to get lost in the minutiae of his art, the work can seem ingeniously complicated or nonsensical, depending on one's inclination… Barney is ultimately the most important American artist of his generation because his imagination is so big… Art is supposed to stick in your mind, and sometimes your craw. Barney's films do both. In the end, the "Cremaster" cycle can be seen as an allegory of the creative process itself, with sexual identity as a metaphor within it, but not the only metaphor. --Michael Kimmelman

Cremaster 3, the last in Matthew Barney's epic five-part film project, is part zombie, part gangster film. Set in 1930s New York and Saratoga Springs as well as Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, the plot explores the Irish mob system, freemasonry, and Celtic lore as further symbols for the forces at play in Barney's mythological system. Named after the muscle that raises or lowers a man's testicles in response to temperature, the Cremaster series has featured Barney as a satyr, a magician, a ram, Harry Houdini, and even famous murderer Gary Gilmore, props made from tapioca, petroleum jelly, ice, and self-healing plastic, and settings as fantastic and desolate as the Isle of Man, an empty football stadium in Idaho, and a nearly empty opera house in Hungary. The films are slow-moving and weirdly hynotic, full of elaborate sexual and biological allusions, references to sports and fashion, and a bizarre mix of autobiography, history, and private symbolism that have earned him comparisons to Wagner. ~This book is the final of the five companion volumes published to coincide with the release of each of the Cremaster films. Each was designed in an original manner by the artist and features photographs and stills from the film it accompanies.