It is VISUAL art. I don't get when people say it's undecipherable. We do not ask Dali to make sens, neither should we ask Barney to make sens as long as it's visually mysterious and attractive...
it is all so self indulgent, too random and not at all important, I just find myself saying over again, SO WHAT! This stream of consciousness is overloaded and seems to be confusing people into believing it's good art. I'm sure it all makes sense to MB and comments show he is getting through to some of you. I just think his work is highly over-rated; a mundane, pointless exercise that wastes peoples time and money.
Matthew Barney is not a good artist he is simply mentally unhinged and some people (with money) find this crap interesting, god it's so boring and pointless and he's so full of shit
Also, despite his penchant for monotonous over-verbalization, Barney actually has a ridiculous sense of humor! look up the directors commentary he did for the Drawing Restraint 9 trailer, in which he fills the role of both himself and Bjork who was not present for the recording. If only he weren't stuck pandering to the art world and could be this silly all the time.
Someone quoted it earlier, but yes, the butterfly is in the mayo!
Art babble aside, I think it's impossible to expect any artist to be able to articulate their work in words. If they could they wouldn't be so driven to try and express their ideas through other mediums. I'll agree that he has a certain luxury of over-intelectualizing and because of that he can get a little self indulgent, but this obsession he has with sexual differentiation is actually really interesting, and the imagery he uses is gorgeous, despite the convoluted narrative. He's fine by me!
@cyclesandepicycles just a note, a very important skill of any serious artist is the ability to express their ideas in words. otherwise they don't get any grants or scholarships. Even to do a exhibition you need to submit a written manifesto or artist statement. Art that 'speak for itself' is usually mediocre, simple art
Some of what he says is quite profound, but undoubtedly beyond the comprehension of a common audience. Such is the disconnect between the fine arts and conventional appeal. He'd make a good art teacher. Otherwise, he might benefit from following the process to the end to then reconsider how to present it publicly?
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What a super over-indulged, decadent fool.
Mattew Barney is the lost, gay,(but in the closet, why else marry a pixie), bastard son of Norman Finkelstein, (has anyone else noticed the creepy similarity?) Of course, in this case, the father is far more interesting than the son.
PS. nb. Europeans, you are PAYING taxes for his ugly orgy, designed to destroy the environment.
What in the world inspired you to post this on every Matthew Barney video available on YouTube? Is it some bizarre guerilla advertising campaign for Norman Finkelstein?
Also, sexist slurs aside, Finkelstein sounds nothing like him anyway!
I just saw Drawing Restraint 9 and am wanting to hear what this man married to Bjork has to say. While I found the movie very interesting (I've watched 3 times) I can't help wandering if Bjork creative influence made since of an otherwise vapid film. I will continue search for interviews. This perhaps should not have been my first choice in trying to understand Mr. Barney. Somehow not hearing the questions answered somehow suggests greater depth to an otherwise pedestrian interviewee.
@dreamsava: i would agree that delving into perceptual grey areas and deciphering some kind of concrete substance is much of of what art is tasked to do. i hear much conversation about the profound and deep places barney's abstract symbolism seems to touch, but little to describe the actuality of it's meaning. The question remains, what exactly is the message, the conclusion drawn, the comment made?
Chris Casio, Maybe you think he has little to say because what he is saying is from a different level of consciousness then you are aware of. Not all humans experience the same levels of perception. The mind is infinite, beyond the walls of logic and reason there are many many many infinite areas in which we are capable of exploring. Most don't however, because they are clinging onto the reality in which was given / programmed to them in the life experience.
Excuse my ignorance as I am not into art, but design (I am in ID), but wouldn't his art be considered "cinema or film"? I never appreciate most modern art but his work is not appealing to me because its strange and sometimes violent and gross. Sorry but just my taste.
i enjoy mr. barney's more sculptural work. in a gallery in chelsea, i saw two halves of a car body linked together with a tiny cow, and spilling beans, or marbles, coming out of the welded car bodies. visually, very enjoyable. listening to him talk though, leaves me uninspired. the overarching theme i hear in his work is: maybe i should have been born a woman
I saw the cycle years ago. The fascinating beauty and grotesque imagery, coupled with its epic scale and length, if you consider it as one piece cut into five sections to make it viewable, for the three days of viewing I sat and returned to sit again like a fly watching flys cocooned and the spider of the films central focus casually spinning cocooning and eating my focus to revel incarnation after incarnation of theatrical spectacle you would assume monarchs and rulers regularly would request.
Barney's films are well done, both technically and, I feel, artistically. As a result they have had a profound impact on me, moreso than other exhibits I have seen. I saw the series at the Guggenheim when Cremaster 3 was released and was amazed. I have yet to see the whole interview but would encourage people to seek out the films before judging the artist too harshly.
wait, perhaps this work is about something. Perhaps it is about how a fiscally endowed white man with very little to actually say can rise to international art stardom by casting the illusion of depth in interviews spent marveling over the properties of vaseline when heated.
I Mean, you understand this kind of stuff is created so one can get high off of whatever drugs and have an experience with it, right? Do you know how awesome that is? You should try it.
Art is a language of the subconscious, a way of dealing with feelings and intuitions that we can't yet articulate or understand. If something had to be explainable or even meaningful to be called art, our range of exploration with it would be severely limited.
You figured him out. This man has got to be the single most pretentious artist on the face of the earth. I think he's mad skilled as a sculptor and as an all around creative person, but you're right. He isn't saying a goddamned thing with his work.
@ChrisCasio clearly you have no idea what is trying to be expressed... the cremasters are amazing works of art with great depth and many different ideas and themes... he's nothing less of a genius and amazigly creative, puts todays artists and entertainers to shame... and as for the vaseline clearly it represents a passing of time haha
this is artbabble at its finest. in the beginning he stated that he didn't like exploring an idea to the point that the piece wold be about that idea. That makes sense in viewing the rest of his interview. It seems clear that he doesn't really know what his work is really about.
It doesn't matter if you know what your work is really about. What's important is that you feel driven to make it, and that you do make it. The end result is merely a product of a process that is inescapably necessary to you for reasons that are intuitive/instinctive at best. You create because you must. This is one of the most messy, insane pieces of work ever made, but it's great because it's true and honest.
People are subconciously driven to do and make a lot of whacky things, that doesn't make it worthwhile, insightful, or interesting. Someone was driven to make 'two girls and a cup' People are driven to make strip malls. His work lacks cohesion, and any decipherable concept. This is the work of someone with little to say and an enormous bank roll to indulge his undeveloped ideas. He spends ten minutes in the interview marveling over the crust that formed on vaseline after a mold failed!
I don't know if you've seen the Cremaster Cycle but I found each film to be mesmerizing. Perhaps Barney isn't as adept at expressing in words what his art is about (though he's far from inarticulate). The fact is that language, sometimes is not adequate to describe some things -- have you ever tried explaining a dream to someone?
@ChrisCasio You could be right. But remember that when a work of genius appears, many people aren't quite up to the task of realizing its many layers of new information.
@ChrisCasio I'm not particularly a Matthew Barney fan, but where's your masterpiece? You don't have one. I'm sure a Yale graduate such as Barney doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. Keep writing those great comments, ChrisCasio. You'd switch places with him any day of the week.
There is plenty of art out there. For plenty of different tastes. I agree on one issue you bring up. That is the cost of art. When art exceeds a certain price it makes me wonder who is controlling the price. And there are certainly a number of other issues related to buying and selling art that would require more research and qualifications that quite frankly I wouldn't want to get into. I appreciate the healthy discussion. I love talking about art. Gets people fired up.
I hope you feel like your money was well spent, and I hope your friends were impressed - I mean, that's why you bought it, right? To further project that vision of yourself that you desire so badly...
I bought the piece because I like the interpretation. Hey everyone! Fergusnow says to not buy Matthew Barney artwork because he believes buying the work is self fullfilling. Everyone is listening Fergusnow.
I sincerely apologise, that wasn't constructive on my behalf. I should explain what I mean... I loathe art which uses encrypted metaphors to explain what seem to be very 'art crowd' esoteric interests. There seems to be very little interaction. About as interesting as listening to peoples dream narratives, people get a kick out of being wise enough and of such good breeding that this sort of thing makes sense to them. A forum for the most culturally capable, and wealthiest classes of society.
....Warhol once said something interesting. He said something along the lines of - The more you stare at something the emptier and better you feel. Meaning, once you know the meaning of something it becomes boring and yet you become satisfied in knowing what it is your looking at. I am glad I don't know everything there is to know about Matthew's work. It makes it more satisfying that way.
Don't you think its motives are to be esoteric? I mean its accessibility is limited, he sells this shit for $100,000 a dvd in limited print, it immediately creates an exclusion in that way, further, it disregards its own contextual experience. It is a cenotaph to the upward spirals of contemporary art and almost a predictable climax....
The accessibility is not limited. I bought an original Matthew Barney for under 1k through Phillips auction house. That is pretty accessible if we are talking about collecting his work. Accessibility in terms of understanding his pieces is another issue. But one I think I already touched on.
I think you need to restructure your argument. You are contradicting yourself. I suggest studying a bit of freemasonry. Maybe you won't find the work as limited if you do your homework.
I think it strives to create problem and higher thinking and in doing so rejects the self participation which all art desires. He's a technician of conceptualisation. I think this stuff is about as constructive and/or interactive as masturbation. And regarding the Warhol quote, I think that is very meaningful in context, but when applied to this, detracts from it. In saying all this, I think It is very beautiful, He certainly has a way with images.
I suppose it's easy enough to discredit someone just by saying something doesn't apply. That is very easy to do. But actually, the Warhol quote is right on and makes perfect sense in describing art and life in general.
My idea of accessibility would be free distribution. I mean he obviously has motive to make large amounts of cash and I find that to contradict the idea of art creation, especially when it is so heavily conceptualised as it is here. As far as I can tell he is taking chumps, like yourself, for a ride. Maybe the reason you cant understand it is - it has no intrinsic meaning, it just appears to grapple with some 'higher thought'...
I am not sure what you mean by free distribution. Are you suggesting that he just give his art to people for free? And I do understand the meaning behind the art. Alot of what I am interested in has to do with his interpretation of freemasonry and the building of King Solomon's temple. You should read up on it. It's fascinating.
Yeah that's exactly what I'm suggesting. I think profits corrupt the honesty of ones art. I probably wont look it up but I'm sure it is interesting. I respect the fact that it deals with issues which interest you and that you find it a fulfilling meditation. I'm sorry I called you a chump, that was definitely off topic. I just get sour about art that is so profitable and blatantly unaccessable to anyone without an explicitly historical knowledge of art.
What is really interesting to me is how his work makes people either love it or hate it. The subject matter is abstract enough to make people confused but it's constructed and executed so perfectly that it begs for understanding. I love it because you can look at it a million times and find new meaning in it every time. Unlike, say, a figurative painting where you look at it and get it. ....
Art is a completely, 100% opinionated action...and even as an art major, I still think some things are quite dumb...I think this guy is one of those artists who over-emphasizes minute qualities and explodes them...like a paper clip being the meaning of life...it gets over dramatic and then boring. I say this because I have to do a project on him...and am now very disappointed lol.
never said that.. of course i can't .. and i know that.. but let's accept it.. he is just too weird. but u know.. actually i have been thinking about that and they are a good couple.. they are both SPECIAL ( i won't say weird so that u don't get offended)
Barney's visual language is borrowed heavily from Kubrick: the way he frames his shots which are shot are filmed with wife angled lenses, the melding of ambient sound with the music score- it's all Stanley.
Funny how Barney's always talking about how narrative is important to his work yet he's such a dreadful storyteller. Brevity Matt! Brevity!!!
It's also funny that he considers narrative so important seeing as how the films are impossible to digest and inaccessible (outside of galleries/museums) as well. Yay!!! I get to sit on an uncomfortable wooden bench with no back and try to watch a five hour movie which is only one out of a series of five. The art-world is so inclusive I just can't understand why it's dying.
The art world today is like Mad Max. Get what you can, when you can, and hopefully there's enough dog food left in the can to feed your dog who's also indispensible for detecting nuclear zombies (oh, that's "A Boy And His Dog', but you get the point.)
my teacher in art college told me to look this guy up today, after he saw my vid peice....... im a bit worried, cos my work isnt or dosnt look as f**ked up as this!!?
i dont like weird stuff! or stuff trying to look weird... some people have this idea that its only art if its weird..... WRONG!!!!!
David doesn't explain them because his movies come from visions - not thought-out concepts. Matthew, it appears on the other hand, is a predominantly left-brained personality, pretending to have a highly developed right brain. It's weird... If he's the left, Bjork is definitely the right. I can see how they meld. He's still creative, but he doesn't have the genius that reaches others like Bjork and Lynch do. You can see he has genius, but it's just different.
I've seen the whole cycle too - it's amazing. But I'd much rather sit through the whole cycle again than have to listen to Matthew Barney talking about it ever again!
I had the oportunity to meet Mat Barney at his headquearters in LIC, NYC. I play in a death metal band and he flew my band from San Diego to NY to perform at a clandestine underground metal show/weird art expo sort of thing. He was genuinely friendly and even let my band stay at his 2 million dollar yatch. Him and Bjork are huge death metal fans. I hung out with him and his crew till sunsrise at a russian strip bar. It was a real honor meeting him.
i fucking love his work, don't get me wrong, but listening to him talk is like carrying on a conversation with my 7 year old nephew. I kind of feel sorry for bjoke now
Look, art-fans can be sheeple too! Not only people who like "Rush Hour 3" and who enjoy Britney are "sheeple"....oh no. There are art-sheep too, who cannot wait to line up and applaud anything subversive, and attach great value and meaning to even the least original garbage. But hey, if it's even just a bit "shocking", the surely it's "revolutionary", right?
Is there more to this than just art? i read somewhere that the videos for the movies were sold to collectors in glass boxes for 300 thousand dollars!! With the freemasonary undertones i am lead to believe that a message lies somehwere in this whole mess. How else can you explain the funding for a expression like this. I find his work appealing and disturbing at the same time much like life itself.
I think that he lost during every cremaster's film the real power of cinema, wich, for me, it is to make people imagine new realities or worlds. He shows really great images from it's own imagination, but i really felt like i wasn't part of it... He creates a new world inside his imagination but don't let us get in too. For me, his work is amazing, really, but i think art shouldn't be just amazing, should be something else. Sorry about my english... it's not very good.
Your english is far better than that of our president [ forgive me]. Anyway, what I see in Barney is an astonishing imagination, whatever the form he chooses. The strangeness is thrilling, however obsure some of his central preoccupations [ which seem connected to, you know, the generative; to the testes, sperm, forms in transition].
I saw Matthew Barney's complete Cremaster Cycle at the Guggenheim in New York over two days some years ago. It was one of the most amazing things I've seen in contemporary art.
I saw Matthew Barney's complete Cremaster Cycle at the Guggenheim in New York over two days some years ago. It was one of the most amazing things I've seen in contemporary art.
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I have a fine appreciation for all sorts of art but this nor Bjork's screeching is NOT art! Sometimes BULLSHIT is just that! BULLSHIT! That YOU happen to fall hook, line and sinker for it speaks more about you and your tastes ..or lack of them than it does me.
Osvaldoe. Why should we listen to you? What makes you think you have the authority to define art for everybody else? It sounds like you are bitter about the success of something that you can't understand and so you desperately try to convince people that their own reactions are wrong. Ridiculous! That is the definition of pretension, not to mention ignorance. So before you put these labels on people with actual ideas and a capacity for creating art, how about a reality check.
"They will attempt to destroy anything that differs from their own / not being able to create art they will not understand art / they will consider their failure as creators only as a failure of the world / not being able to love fully they will believe your love incomplete / and then they will hate you / and their hatred will be perfect / like a shining diamond / like a knife / like a mountain / like a tiger / like hemlock / their finest art" -- Bukowski
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Pretentious twaddle! He may be an "artist" but calling Bjork a "musician" with her adenoidal, off key, guttural grunts and squeaks is like calling Paris Hilton a humanitarian!
However Matthew Barney and Bjork deserve each other as they are both worthless.
This only proves that if you believe your own bullshit and have enough conviction you can sell just about anything to those high falutin' gullible fools of the "art" world.
That neither Barney's nor Bjork's art does anything for you is much more a comment on your own failing capacity to appreciate art than anything they might produce.
This has been bothering me...But where the hell did he get the money to create ALL of this?? After seeing glimpse of this movie, it looks like it took a lot
to de stijl-born i would simply ask what, specifically, did matthew barney say that you found pretentious? to me, he comes across as very down-to-earth. he even talks about how the project became more interesting the more he was able to get his ego out of the way and just let the project develop naturally and organically.
Art critics are still divided on this guy. Most of the time, when I see his stuff, I laugh because it's so absurd. For all I know, he could be laughing at us all for taking this too seriously.
Mr Barney, I don't care if you're straight, bi, gay or whatever other label. Nor would I ask any difficult questions (sorry Byork).
bovary207 1 week ago
to complicated to get my attention, simplify mr. barney.
schostabur 3 weeks ago
wtf is he sayin lol
MovIeGOerSS 1 month ago
How did Bjork get this guy?!!!
sugarkaneification 2 months ago
A recurring theme of up skirting, WTF is this guy on?
sugarkaneification 2 months ago
barney is crap basically trying to convince you this is art
clipperpnt 2 months ago
Only Bjork could understand all this jibberish...
ShikagoMale 4 months ago
the cremaster cyclye is an amzing art work and a big inspiration <3
Sabacouture 4 months ago
Id like to ask him how he's able to fool so many people with this nonsense? LOL.
abbyboyone 5 months ago
pretty interesting guy...bjork brought me here
whowantstogetnaked 5 months ago 2
definitely cant be bothered to watch all this
michaellovegrove 5 months ago
he's a jock turned artist
youllgrowonme 7 months ago
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ALLENTVSHOW3 5 months ago
It is VISUAL art. I don't get when people say it's undecipherable. We do not ask Dali to make sens, neither should we ask Barney to make sens as long as it's visually mysterious and attractive...
TheSymonDe 8 months ago 4
is this guy married to bjork?
AUSNick87 9 months ago
Cremaster Cycle in my playlists.
JohnWhitesideParsons 9 months ago
You sick bastard.haaahhahahaahha
BigGunsBradford 9 months ago
the visuals are awesome, but the message is too indecipherable for this to be called a great work of art
NonexistentFuture 9 months ago
matthew Barney is hot.
healtheworld93 10 months ago 7
it is all so self indulgent, too random and not at all important, I just find myself saying over again, SO WHAT! This stream of consciousness is overloaded and seems to be confusing people into believing it's good art. I'm sure it all makes sense to MB and comments show he is getting through to some of you. I just think his work is highly over-rated; a mundane, pointless exercise that wastes peoples time and money.
olesuper8 11 months ago
Matthew Barney is not a good artist he is simply mentally unhinged and some people (with money) find this crap interesting, god it's so boring and pointless and he's so full of shit
olesuper8 11 months ago
Cremaster Cycle's playlist on my channel.
JohnWhitesideParsons 1 year ago
Who is the rich old gay man who funded Barney's projects?
nycruise 1 year ago
@nycruise the gladstone gallery. barbara gladstone and matthew barney himself.
misomilk 9 months ago
Also, despite his penchant for monotonous over-verbalization, Barney actually has a ridiculous sense of humor! look up the directors commentary he did for the Drawing Restraint 9 trailer, in which he fills the role of both himself and Bjork who was not present for the recording. If only he weren't stuck pandering to the art world and could be this silly all the time.
Someone quoted it earlier, but yes, the butterfly is in the mayo!
cyclesandepicycles 1 year ago
@cyclesandepicycles That's not him, it's someone doing a parody of him in a commentary. Check out the channel for that vid.
I'd like to see a vid of Barney's reaction to watching that, though. See if he doesn't take himself too seriously :P
TheNexus 11 months ago
Art babble aside, I think it's impossible to expect any artist to be able to articulate their work in words. If they could they wouldn't be so driven to try and express their ideas through other mediums. I'll agree that he has a certain luxury of over-intelectualizing and because of that he can get a little self indulgent, but this obsession he has with sexual differentiation is actually really interesting, and the imagery he uses is gorgeous, despite the convoluted narrative. He's fine by me!
cyclesandepicycles 1 year ago 3
@cyclesandepicycles just a note, a very important skill of any serious artist is the ability to express their ideas in words. otherwise they don't get any grants or scholarships. Even to do a exhibition you need to submit a written manifesto or artist statement. Art that 'speak for itself' is usually mediocre, simple art
cachorro25 11 months ago
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Some of what he says is quite profound, but undoubtedly beyond the comprehension of a common audience. Such is the disconnect between the fine arts and conventional appeal. He'd make a good art teacher. Otherwise, he might benefit from following the process to the end to then reconsider how to present it publicly?
Kristianssand 1 year ago
Boa Noite from Sao Paulo Brasil, I think most of the comments were stupid.
Matthew Barney is a genius. i understand what he is saying, and he has
content and context. Not any artist can go to documenta and have govt.
funding. I am going to the Cremaster film on November here in Sao Paulo
on November 22nd 2010 and I cannot wait. Thumbs up Matthew. i love
what you are doing, and i am a great fan of yours. Keep up the great work
Big Hug,
Melton
magidsonart 1 year ago
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Kristianssand 1 year ago
"um"
microland 1 year ago
The fucker keeps saying "uhm".
XxBowieTipxX 1 year ago
@XxBowieTipxX you said exactly .... so annoying
w3rw3r2002 1 year ago
I call this piece of crap "aids on the brain"
michigan6443 1 year ago
Comment removed
StefanSaito 1 year ago
since his separation from fred hes nomore himself
belneddy 1 year ago
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What a super over-indulged, decadent fool.
Mattew Barney is the lost, gay,(but in the closet, why else marry a pixie), bastard son of Norman Finkelstein, (has anyone else noticed the creepy similarity?) Of course, in this case, the father is far more interesting than the son.
PS. nb. Europeans, you are PAYING taxes for his ugly orgy, designed to destroy the environment.
persianprincessacu 1 year ago
@persianprincessacu
What in the world inspired you to post this on every Matthew Barney video available on YouTube? Is it some bizarre guerilla advertising campaign for Norman Finkelstein?
Also, sexist slurs aside, Finkelstein sounds nothing like him anyway!
StefanSaito 1 year ago
It is a little too "on the nose" for my taste.
MCPetruk 1 year ago
I just saw Drawing Restraint 9 and am wanting to hear what this man married to Bjork has to say. While I found the movie very interesting (I've watched 3 times) I can't help wandering if Bjork creative influence made since of an otherwise vapid film. I will continue search for interviews. This perhaps should not have been my first choice in trying to understand Mr. Barney. Somehow not hearing the questions answered somehow suggests greater depth to an otherwise pedestrian interviewee.
bintasyllah 1 year ago
i think i just developed down syndrome....
SuperLeevancleef 1 year ago 2
zsa zsa gabor just vomited a little bit in her vagina...
quckitt 1 year ago
shut up!
disCrowe 1 year ago
Alexandro Jodorosky- RIP OFF
Houdini555 1 year ago
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a closeted homosexul claiming to be having an artistic heterosexual experience
lloydsk 1 year ago
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lloydsk 1 year ago
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lloydsk 1 year ago
@dreamsava: i would agree that delving into perceptual grey areas and deciphering some kind of concrete substance is much of of what art is tasked to do. i hear much conversation about the profound and deep places barney's abstract symbolism seems to touch, but little to describe the actuality of it's meaning. The question remains, what exactly is the message, the conclusion drawn, the comment made?
ChrisCasio 1 year ago
That montage at the beginning really makes Matthew Barney seem more interesting than he is.
CaptainSiberia 1 year ago
Cremaster1, Busby Berkeley meets 2001 meets Star Treks ovarian cysts.
Not bad. How did he get a rodeo in the middle of Rocky Mountain salt flats
in #2?
Saw Barney at the showing. He's impressive until he opens his mouth.
I've seen him in NYC before w/o knowing who he was.
danger0usknowledge 1 year ago
GARBADE THIS MATHHEW BARNEY
dilcofilms 1 year ago
please make this video to 16:9
cacaorocks 1 year ago
maybe small details matter to great artists
maybe money is meant to be spent frustrating people like you
romoroto 1 year ago
Chris Casio, Maybe you think he has little to say because what he is saying is from a different level of consciousness then you are aware of. Not all humans experience the same levels of perception. The mind is infinite, beyond the walls of logic and reason there are many many many infinite areas in which we are capable of exploring. Most don't however, because they are clinging onto the reality in which was given / programmed to them in the life experience.
dreamsava 1 year ago
yes...and then there are the acid casualties.
digimaton 1 year ago
@dreamsava Nope. Matthew Barney truly is self-indulgent and dull as dishwater.
CaptainSiberia 1 year ago
@dreamsava (cont) exists and effects. That was surrealism. But what is the new commentary? what is he adding to this conversation?
ChrisCasio 1 year ago
"um"
SrDisorden 1 year ago
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Excuse my ignorance as I am not into art, but design (I am in ID), but wouldn't his art be considered "cinema or film"? I never appreciate most modern art but his work is not appealing to me because its strange and sometimes violent and gross. Sorry but just my taste.
cjs33139 1 year ago
in full agreement with ELBSeattle.
sinkholed 1 year ago
I love Matthew Barney. His work is intriguing, disturbing, maddening, beautiful, horrifying and hilarious. To me, this makes truly great art.
ELBSeattle 1 year ago
you can tell he is thinking about different things while he's talking... I just think he's beautiful
laleldon 1 year ago
'2 girls and one cup' was a cinematic, and artistic, masterpiece!
Daveydior 2 years ago 2
mental masturbation on the grandest scale....I wonder if he has ever grown his own food.
JANXDPDX 2 years ago
@JANXDPDX
He grows food for himself and others.
I didn't get his work at first either, but I've found it's worth the effort.
roquefort88888 2 years ago
There's a butterfly in the mayonnaise.
hipdada 2 years ago 9
@hipdada lol - love that "interview"
diskonizeMe 2 years ago
He talks purely art.
tanyakido 2 years ago
i enjoy mr. barney's more sculptural work. in a gallery in chelsea, i saw two halves of a car body linked together with a tiny cow, and spilling beans, or marbles, coming out of the welded car bodies. visually, very enjoyable. listening to him talk though, leaves me uninspired. the overarching theme i hear in his work is: maybe i should have been born a woman
killamcbills 2 years ago
and?
lloplop 2 years ago 2
and, i think his explanations about his work are expositions on himself. they detract from the art.
killamcbills 2 years ago
I saw the cycle years ago. The fascinating beauty and grotesque imagery, coupled with its epic scale and length, if you consider it as one piece cut into five sections to make it viewable, for the three days of viewing I sat and returned to sit again like a fly watching flys cocooned and the spider of the films central focus casually spinning cocooning and eating my focus to revel incarnation after incarnation of theatrical spectacle you would assume monarchs and rulers regularly would request.
MRBEARDMA 2 years ago
@MRBEARDMA Thank you, you made my day (night).
shroudofstars 1 year ago
he's a mastermind.
could listen to him talk about his work all day.
adramatictheme 2 years ago 2
Hes a freemason. these are freemason rituals.
elasticmachinery 2 years ago
Yeah, I'd really like to know how Bjork got caught up in all of that masonic stuff. Was she involved before? Did she get inducted?
madsketcher 2 years ago
Really? Are you so sure?
IrishLincoln 2 years ago
Barney's films are well done, both technically and, I feel, artistically. As a result they have had a profound impact on me, moreso than other exhibits I have seen. I saw the series at the Guggenheim when Cremaster 3 was released and was amazed. I have yet to see the whole interview but would encourage people to seek out the films before judging the artist too harshly.
danneskjo1d 2 years ago
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wait, perhaps this work is about something. Perhaps it is about how a fiscally endowed white man with very little to actually say can rise to international art stardom by casting the illusion of depth in interviews spent marveling over the properties of vaseline when heated.
ChrisCasio 2 years ago 17
I Mean, you understand this kind of stuff is created so one can get high off of whatever drugs and have an experience with it, right? Do you know how awesome that is? You should try it.
yocheckitboi 2 years ago
@yocheckitboi Oh man, I'm actually trying it right now...
shroudofstars 1 year ago
Art is a language of the subconscious, a way of dealing with feelings and intuitions that we can't yet articulate or understand. If something had to be explainable or even meaningful to be called art, our range of exploration with it would be severely limited.
jsalmon 2 years ago 3
@jsalmon Exactly. Thank you. I hate explaining things, it's not fun.
shroudofstars 1 year ago
@ChrisCasio lol he is pretty blah as a person but his movies are somewhat interesting
kakabukkake0 1 year ago
@ChrisCasio someone who really understands modern art (no sarcasm)
pabolton 1 year ago
@ChrisCasio Maybe...Maybe not. Maybe it's about how crazy we are.
TheGreenPlague 1 year ago
@ChrisCasio
You figured him out. This man has got to be the single most pretentious artist on the face of the earth. I think he's mad skilled as a sculptor and as an all around creative person, but you're right. He isn't saying a goddamned thing with his work.
I prefer David Lynch myself.
Babylonthegreat 11 months ago
@ChrisCasio clearly you have no idea what is trying to be expressed... the cremasters are amazing works of art with great depth and many different ideas and themes... he's nothing less of a genius and amazigly creative, puts todays artists and entertainers to shame... and as for the vaseline clearly it represents a passing of time haha
cherrytongue32 11 months ago
@ChrisCasio man fekr mikonam ke shoma bayad tasmim begir ke mano mikhay
pq2mm4zzue 5 months ago
this is artbabble at its finest. in the beginning he stated that he didn't like exploring an idea to the point that the piece wold be about that idea. That makes sense in viewing the rest of his interview. It seems clear that he doesn't really know what his work is really about.
ChrisCasio 2 years ago 3
It doesn't matter if you know what your work is really about. What's important is that you feel driven to make it, and that you do make it. The end result is merely a product of a process that is inescapably necessary to you for reasons that are intuitive/instinctive at best. You create because you must. This is one of the most messy, insane pieces of work ever made, but it's great because it's true and honest.
afaiienphoenix 2 years ago
People are subconciously driven to do and make a lot of whacky things, that doesn't make it worthwhile, insightful, or interesting. Someone was driven to make 'two girls and a cup' People are driven to make strip malls. His work lacks cohesion, and any decipherable concept. This is the work of someone with little to say and an enormous bank roll to indulge his undeveloped ideas. He spends ten minutes in the interview marveling over the crust that formed on vaseline after a mold failed!
ChrisCasio 2 years ago 3
I don't know if you've seen the Cremaster Cycle but I found each film to be mesmerizing. Perhaps Barney isn't as adept at expressing in words what his art is about (though he's far from inarticulate). The fact is that language, sometimes is not adequate to describe some things -- have you ever tried explaining a dream to someone?
danneskjo1d 2 years ago
@ChrisCasio You could be right. But remember that when a work of genius appears, many people aren't quite up to the task of realizing its many layers of new information.
WesCivilz 1 year ago
@ChrisCasio this guy just filmed a bunch of random crap and called it a movie.
shagrat32 1 year ago
@ChrisCasio I'm not particularly a Matthew Barney fan, but where's your masterpiece? You don't have one. I'm sure a Yale graduate such as Barney doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. Keep writing those great comments, ChrisCasio. You'd switch places with him any day of the week.
Duthie32 1 year ago
It's fascinating
whitecubeproject 2 years ago
There is plenty of art out there. For plenty of different tastes. I agree on one issue you bring up. That is the cost of art. When art exceeds a certain price it makes me wonder who is controlling the price. And there are certainly a number of other issues related to buying and selling art that would require more research and qualifications that quite frankly I wouldn't want to get into. I appreciate the healthy discussion. I love talking about art. Gets people fired up.
forsol34 2 years ago
I hope you feel like your money was well spent, and I hope your friends were impressed - I mean, that's why you bought it, right? To further project that vision of yourself that you desire so badly...
fergusnow 2 years ago
I bought the piece because I like the interpretation. Hey everyone! Fergusnow says to not buy Matthew Barney artwork because he believes buying the work is self fullfilling. Everyone is listening Fergusnow.
forsol34 2 years ago
I sincerely apologise, that wasn't constructive on my behalf. I should explain what I mean... I loathe art which uses encrypted metaphors to explain what seem to be very 'art crowd' esoteric interests. There seems to be very little interaction. About as interesting as listening to peoples dream narratives, people get a kick out of being wise enough and of such good breeding that this sort of thing makes sense to them. A forum for the most culturally capable, and wealthiest classes of society.
fergusnow 2 years ago 2
....Warhol once said something interesting. He said something along the lines of - The more you stare at something the emptier and better you feel. Meaning, once you know the meaning of something it becomes boring and yet you become satisfied in knowing what it is your looking at. I am glad I don't know everything there is to know about Matthew's work. It makes it more satisfying that way.
forsol34 2 years ago
Don't you think its motives are to be esoteric? I mean its accessibility is limited, he sells this shit for $100,000 a dvd in limited print, it immediately creates an exclusion in that way, further, it disregards its own contextual experience. It is a cenotaph to the upward spirals of contemporary art and almost a predictable climax....
fergusnow 2 years ago
The accessibility is not limited. I bought an original Matthew Barney for under 1k through Phillips auction house. That is pretty accessible if we are talking about collecting his work. Accessibility in terms of understanding his pieces is another issue. But one I think I already touched on.
I think you need to restructure your argument. You are contradicting yourself. I suggest studying a bit of freemasonry. Maybe you won't find the work as limited if you do your homework.
forsol34 2 years ago
I think it strives to create problem and higher thinking and in doing so rejects the self participation which all art desires. He's a technician of conceptualisation. I think this stuff is about as constructive and/or interactive as masturbation. And regarding the Warhol quote, I think that is very meaningful in context, but when applied to this, detracts from it. In saying all this, I think It is very beautiful, He certainly has a way with images.
fergusnow 2 years ago
I suppose it's easy enough to discredit someone just by saying something doesn't apply. That is very easy to do. But actually, the Warhol quote is right on and makes perfect sense in describing art and life in general.
forsol34 2 years ago
My idea of accessibility would be free distribution. I mean he obviously has motive to make large amounts of cash and I find that to contradict the idea of art creation, especially when it is so heavily conceptualised as it is here. As far as I can tell he is taking chumps, like yourself, for a ride. Maybe the reason you cant understand it is - it has no intrinsic meaning, it just appears to grapple with some 'higher thought'...
fergusnow 2 years ago
I am not sure what you mean by free distribution. Are you suggesting that he just give his art to people for free? And I do understand the meaning behind the art. Alot of what I am interested in has to do with his interpretation of freemasonry and the building of King Solomon's temple. You should read up on it. It's fascinating.
forsol34 2 years ago
Yeah that's exactly what I'm suggesting. I think profits corrupt the honesty of ones art. I probably wont look it up but I'm sure it is interesting. I respect the fact that it deals with issues which interest you and that you find it a fulfilling meditation. I'm sorry I called you a chump, that was definitely off topic. I just get sour about art that is so profitable and blatantly unaccessable to anyone without an explicitly historical knowledge of art.
fergusnow 2 years ago
What is really interesting to me is how his work makes people either love it or hate it. The subject matter is abstract enough to make people confused but it's constructed and executed so perfectly that it begs for understanding. I love it because you can look at it a million times and find new meaning in it every time. Unlike, say, a figurative painting where you look at it and get it. ....
forsol34 2 years ago
Cremaster is a taser cinema enema. See Duchamp, Anemic Cinema.
furweel 2 years ago
Art is a completely, 100% opinionated action...and even as an art major, I still think some things are quite dumb...I think this guy is one of those artists who over-emphasizes minute qualities and explodes them...like a paper clip being the meaning of life...it gets over dramatic and then boring. I say this because I have to do a project on him...and am now very disappointed lol.
thepilotguy123 2 years ago
thanks for putting this up.
great stuff.
JWpeppa 2 years ago
BALLS
muddmania 2 years ago
hes done some cool stuff, but he should keep his mouth shut.
pippigladstone 2 years ago
a bit scary..
bjork should get divorce.. not kidding
gatita91 2 years ago
so you can determine who matt loves?
t7g6s8 2 years ago
never said that.. of course i can't .. and i know that.. but let's accept it.. he is just too weird. but u know.. actually i have been thinking about that and they are a good couple.. they are both SPECIAL ( i won't say weird so that u don't get offended)
gatita91 2 years ago
The measure of genius is not the amount of knowledge one knows but of the way one uses the knowledge one has.
a440nick 2 years ago 4
So, which tactic do you say Barney is using?
KingScuzzo 2 years ago
Yale grad, art star, athlete, hot and hung as hell. Barney is the champion of the world. The survivor of the fittest.
faizthebaiz 3 years ago
dont forget to add either windbag or wanker to your jerk-off list
flojob 2 years ago
Oh, NOW I get it!
Croscros72 3 years ago
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this is what's wrong with art today, people like Barney and Damien Hirsch.
solimiansky 3 years ago
Hirst?
sisterofinvention 3 years ago 3
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Mephistofeles420 3 years ago
Barney's visual language is borrowed heavily from Kubrick: the way he frames his shots which are shot are filmed with wife angled lenses, the melding of ambient sound with the music score- it's all Stanley.
Funny how Barney's always talking about how narrative is important to his work yet he's such a dreadful storyteller. Brevity Matt! Brevity!!!
larrypearce2 3 years ago
retard! you are a retard!
codyg670 2 years ago
Damn you're clever.
larrypearce2 2 years ago
It's also funny that he considers narrative so important seeing as how the films are impossible to digest and inaccessible (outside of galleries/museums) as well. Yay!!! I get to sit on an uncomfortable wooden bench with no back and try to watch a five hour movie which is only one out of a series of five. The art-world is so inclusive I just can't understand why it's dying.
KingScuzzo 2 years ago
The art world today is like Mad Max. Get what you can, when you can, and hopefully there's enough dog food left in the can to feed your dog who's also indispensible for detecting nuclear zombies (oh, that's "A Boy And His Dog', but you get the point.)
larrypearce2 2 years ago
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my teacher in art college told me to look this guy up today, after he saw my vid peice....... im a bit worried, cos my work isnt or dosnt look as f**ked up as this!!?
i dont like weird stuff! or stuff trying to look weird... some people have this idea that its only art if its weird..... WRONG!!!!!
dymps84 3 years ago
art is about self expression, in whatever form that takes
nothing is weird because nothing is normal
if you don't connect with something, thats fine. but everything is essentially the same if it comes from a place of conviction.
redrocket110 3 years ago 11
Well put. I would place "commitment" in place of "conviction" however. "Conviction" sounds as if it were something sentenced upon by the courts.
larrypearce2 3 years ago
@redrocket110 very well said, sir.
olive1913 1 year ago
How mind numbing. I really need to break my habit of learning about the artists i like. It's never as exciting as the art itself.
bocaburgler 3 years ago 2
I dunno after hearing Barney I understand now why David Lynch wont explain his films.
xxashyy 3 years ago 4
Yes indeed and Lynch's movies are good.
KingScuzzo 2 years ago
David doesn't explain them because his movies come from visions - not thought-out concepts. Matthew, it appears on the other hand, is a predominantly left-brained personality, pretending to have a highly developed right brain. It's weird... If he's the left, Bjork is definitely the right. I can see how they meld. He's still creative, but he doesn't have the genius that reaches others like Bjork and Lynch do. You can see he has genius, but it's just different.
madsketcher 2 years ago
don't do drugs kids!
skidmit2 3 years ago
Amen.
UCONNgirl 3 years ago
i wonder what his english teachers had to deal with when he had a paper
pookiesma 3 years ago 3
I've seen the whole cycle too - it's amazing. But I'd much rather sit through the whole cycle again than have to listen to Matthew Barney talking about it ever again!
stickyfixer 3 years ago 3
hehehe his last names barney.....
daddyslittlegirl6497 3 years ago
I had the oportunity to meet Mat Barney at his headquearters in LIC, NYC. I play in a death metal band and he flew my band from San Diego to NY to perform at a clandestine underground metal show/weird art expo sort of thing. He was genuinely friendly and even let my band stay at his 2 million dollar yatch. Him and Bjork are huge death metal fans. I hung out with him and his crew till sunsrise at a russian strip bar. It was a real honor meeting him.
thysempiternus 3 years ago
i fucking love his work, don't get me wrong, but listening to him talk is like carrying on a conversation with my 7 year old nephew. I kind of feel sorry for bjoke now
khatmandont 3 years ago
Look, art-fans can be sheeple too! Not only people who like "Rush Hour 3" and who enjoy Britney are "sheeple"....oh no. There are art-sheep too, who cannot wait to line up and applaud anything subversive, and attach great value and meaning to even the least original garbage. But hey, if it's even just a bit "shocking", the surely it's "revolutionary", right?
"breaking down walls", "brave", and "honest".
Haaaaaaahaha!
Art-sheep!
eggbertsmith 3 years ago 2
It makes sense to him, don't you think?
bittiker 3 years ago
Is there more to this than just art? i read somewhere that the videos for the movies were sold to collectors in glass boxes for 300 thousand dollars!! With the freemasonary undertones i am lead to believe that a message lies somehwere in this whole mess. How else can you explain the funding for a expression like this. I find his work appealing and disturbing at the same time much like life itself.
good2btheking 3 years ago
I think that he lost during every cremaster's film the real power of cinema, wich, for me, it is to make people imagine new realities or worlds. He shows really great images from it's own imagination, but i really felt like i wasn't part of it... He creates a new world inside his imagination but don't let us get in too. For me, his work is amazing, really, but i think art shouldn't be just amazing, should be something else. Sorry about my english... it's not very good.
stgoramirez 3 years ago 5
Your english is far better than that of our president [ forgive me]. Anyway, what I see in Barney is an astonishing imagination, whatever the form he chooses. The strangeness is thrilling, however obsure some of his central preoccupations [ which seem connected to, you know, the generative; to the testes, sperm, forms in transition].
dinnerbucket9 3 years ago
is their any way i can watch the cycle? im sure its leaked somewhere
botch8949 3 years ago
do a piece on expanding earth theory
steamroomstud 3 years ago 2
I saw Matthew Barney's complete Cremaster Cycle at the Guggenheim in New York over two days some years ago. It was one of the most amazing things I've seen in contemporary art.
PGR777 3 years ago 4
I saw Matthew Barney's complete Cremaster Cycle at the Guggenheim in New York over two days some years ago. It was one of the most amazing things I've seen in contemporary art.
PGR777 3 years ago
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I have a fine appreciation for all sorts of art but this nor Bjork's screeching is NOT art! Sometimes BULLSHIT is just that! BULLSHIT! That YOU happen to fall hook, line and sinker for it speaks more about you and your tastes ..or lack of them than it does me.
osvaldoe 3 years ago
So everyone should model their tastes after yours? Everyone should see the world as you do? You have it all figured out? Awesome.Really, thats great.
tigerslap 3 years ago 4
Osvaldoe. Why should we listen to you? What makes you think you have the authority to define art for everybody else? It sounds like you are bitter about the success of something that you can't understand and so you desperately try to convince people that their own reactions are wrong. Ridiculous! That is the definition of pretension, not to mention ignorance. So before you put these labels on people with actual ideas and a capacity for creating art, how about a reality check.
BenCtree 3 years ago 4
"They will attempt to destroy anything that differs from their own / not being able to create art they will not understand art / they will consider their failure as creators only as a failure of the world / not being able to love fully they will believe your love incomplete / and then they will hate you / and their hatred will be perfect / like a shining diamond / like a knife / like a mountain / like a tiger / like hemlock / their finest art" -- Bukowski
BloatedSensations 3 years ago
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Pretentious twaddle! He may be an "artist" but calling Bjork a "musician" with her adenoidal, off key, guttural grunts and squeaks is like calling Paris Hilton a humanitarian!
However Matthew Barney and Bjork deserve each other as they are both worthless.
This only proves that if you believe your own bullshit and have enough conviction you can sell just about anything to those high falutin' gullible fools of the "art" world.
osvaldoe 3 years ago
That neither Barney's nor Bjork's art does anything for you is much more a comment on your own failing capacity to appreciate art than anything they might produce.
cdyexhibit 3 years ago
This has been bothering me...But where the hell did he get the money to create ALL of this?? After seeing glimpse of this movie, it looks like it took a lot
dragon18783 3 years ago 3
matthew Barney is one of the richest artists in the world. Not to mention being married to a very rich and famous musician.
bretblatt 3 years ago
Awesome post, good looks!
vegawins 3 years ago
hey Matthew Barney can you please tell Andrew to get me some food. because I'm hungry!
lorro4 3 years ago
am i alone, or has no one else seen this series of films?
roodoods 3 years ago
i own copies ;D
thesalmon83 3 years ago
so you haven't seen it. unfortunate
ianpender 3 years ago
to de stijl-born i would simply ask what, specifically, did matthew barney say that you found pretentious? to me, he comes across as very down-to-earth. he even talks about how the project became more interesting the more he was able to get his ego out of the way and just let the project develop naturally and organically.
nypigeon 3 years ago
Where does he get the $ to do this?
lgomez222 3 years ago
He gets the $ to do this from the collectors who pay 100s of 1000s for hardcopies of his film
prlrfuller 3 years ago
Art critics are still divided on this guy. Most of the time, when I see his stuff, I laugh because it's so absurd. For all I know, he could be laughing at us all for taking this too seriously.
MaryJamesMurdoch 3 years ago
Boring video
Isaacsac2 3 years ago
who is this art going to effect besides art students?
radicum 3 years ago
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man his a retard. you gotta listen to his words not listening
jimbojet2008 4 years ago