March 30, 2006

Matthew Barney in Kimonos With Vaseline, Of Course

Matthew Barney's newest film/art piece Drawing Restraint 9, a collaboration with his lady Björk, comes out this weekend and Cinecultist is pretty excited. We first saw Barney's work when we went to Germany, in an exhibition about gender difference. It was a still from Cremaster 3 (his last series which culminated in an amazing show at the Guggenheim that we went to twice) and we were hooked on his bizarre mise en scéne and allusions to cultural memory.

This time around Barney's major influence is traditional Japan and once again, Vaseline plays a huge part in the "plot" as he pours a huge slab of it on a sailing ship. Björk appears along with Barney as one of "the Guests" on the boat and she also composed the music, using particularly an old Japanese instrument called the sho. It should be totally beautiful and completely perplexing, if the stills below are any evidence. For those in NYC, it's playing at the IFC Center in the West Village.

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Posted by karen at March 30, 2006 8:49 AM