MATTHEW BARNEY (b. 1967) CREMASTER 1: ORCHIDE

A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION OF CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY

Provenance
Barbara Gladstone Gallery, NEW YORK

Exhibited
MUNICH, Sammlung Goetz, MATTHEW BARNEY-TONY OURSLER JEFF WALL, July 22, 1996-January 31, 1997, p. 44 (another example exhibited illustrated)
NEW YORK, Guggenheim Museum Soho, THE HUGO BOSS PRIZE, December 10, 1996-January 19, 1997 (another example exhibited)
ARKEN, Museum for Moderne Kunst, VERONICA'S REVENGE, June 3 September 3, 2000 (another example exhibited)
SYDNEY, Museum of Contemporary Art, VERONICA'S REVENGE, November 16, 2000-March 4, 2001 (another example exhibited)
PRAGUE, Galerie Rudolfinum, VERONICA'S REVENGE, May 24 September 2, 2001, p. 23 (another example exhibited illustrated)
COLOGNE, Museum Ludwig Musée d'art Moderne de la ville de Paris and NEW YORK, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, MATTHEW BARNEY: THE CREMASTER CYCLE, June 6, 2002-June 4, 2003, p. 153 (another example exhibited illustrated)

Literature
K. Schampers, MATTHEW BARNEY: PACE CAR FOR THE HUBRIS PILL, ROTTERDAM, 1995, n.p. (illustrated)
P. Schjedahl, "Who's the Boss," THE VILLAGE VOICE,NEW YORK, December 24, 1996, p. 93 (illustrated)
I. Goetz and C. Meyer-Stooll, MATTHEW BARNEY-TONY OURSLERJEFF WALL, HAMBURG,1996, p. 44 (illustrated)
M. Barney, T. Morgan and L. Fisher, MATTHEW BARNEY: CREMASTER 1, VIENNA-BASEL, 1997, n.p. (illustrated)
E. Janus, ed., VERONICA'S REVENGE: CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES IN PHOTOGRAPHY, ZURICH-BERLIN-NEW YORK, 1998, p. 181 (illustrated)
J. Avgikos, F. Bonami, A. Gingeras, T. N. Goodeve, K. Kertess, R. Rugoff and O. Zaya, THE HUGO BOSS PRIZE 2000, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NEW YORK, 2000, n.p. (illustrated)
N. Smolik and R. Schumacher, AMERICAN ART FROM THE GOETZ COLLECTION, PRAGUE,2001, p. 23 (illustrated)
D. Aaronson, ed., PHOTOGRAPHY TRANSFORMED: THE METROPOLITAN BANK & TRUST COLLECTION, NEW YORK, 2002, p. 45 (illustrated)
N. Spector, MATTHEW BARNEY: THE CREMASTER CYCLE,NEW YORK, 2002, p. 153 (illustrated)

Beginning in 1994, Matthew Barney embarked on an ambitious seminal five-part series entitled CREMASTER, an imaginative and mythological hybridization of video and film in which Barney creates his own cinematic universe, from which he created a groupoffantastic sculptures, photographs and drawings.

CREMASTER 1 IS PURE UTOPIA, A NARCISSISTIC PARADISE OF A TOTAL UNDIFFERENTIATION. THIS IS THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE INCARNATE. THE ORGANISM DEPICTED – A COMPILATION OF GOODYEAR, HER BLIMPS, HER ATTENDANTS, AND HER CHORUS – IS SUSPENDED IN A TAUTOLOGICAL STATE OF SELF-IDENTIFICATION. ITS ONLY REFERENT IS ITSELF, AND SINCE THERE IS NO SENSE OF CONTRADICTION OR CONFLICT, THE ORGANISM FEELS AT ONE WITH THE WORLD.
N. Spector, MATTHEW BARNEY: THE CREMASTER CYCLE, NEW YORK, 2002, p. 34.

Matthew Barney's CREMASTER 1 is a musical revue performed on the Astroturf playing field of Bronco Stadium in Boise, Idaho, which is Barney's hometown. Gliding in time to the musical score, Miss Goodyear, the film's protagonist, produces diagrams that direct the choreographic patterns created by a troupe of dancing girls on the field below. The chorus girls delineate the contours of a still-androgynous gonadal structure, which echoes the shapes of the two Goodyear blimps overhead, and symbolizes a state of pure potential. Barney's CREMASTER 1: ORCHIDELLA illustrates the elegant theatrical and choreographed movements, directed by the curious games of Miss Goodyear.

The CREMASTER series deals with origins and transformation, it is informed by an extensive variety of sources ranging from the Middle Ages to the era of cyber space and is wondrously fused by Barney into an extravagant series of stories. Barney's own background, so frequently cited, is relevant contextually as well. Born in San Francisco, Barney grew up as the "All-American," attending Yale University on a football scholarship, and financed his subsequent abandoned study of medicine by worked as a photographer's model. Barney's ivy league football background plays an obvious role in CREMASTER 1 both in its location and insistence on the absurd distinction between masculinity and femininity.