Matthew Barney: Cremaster 4 (1994-95)

Video (color, sound) 42 min. USA

Presented in a Sculptural Encasing from Plastic, Silk, and the disc within a silkscreened sleeve.

Cremaster 4 is set on the Isle of Mann, set around the races which take place there annually. The main character (the Loughton Candidate), three accompanying faeries, a goat, and the two racing teams, perform their bizarre ritual with the island itself, in order to represent what Matthew Barney views as the fourth stage in sexual differentiation. In addition to the biological undertones, the characters in Cremaster 4 and all other films in the Cycle are all in reference to their settings. Cremaster 4 was the first film created as a part of the five-part Cremaster Cycle, in which each cycle represents stages of the cremaster muscle which control the rising and lowering of the male reproductive system, as well determining gender during pre-natal development. Each film in the series uses the different stages, from a gender-less form, to a completely differentiated form, as the back-bone for the actions within them. The films are, more than anything, an exploration of the settings behind each of the cycle, by bringing forth their mythology, cultural identity, and history. The acclaim received for the films resonate with the unusual scale and ambition behind the work which went into the project. In addition to the budget behind the films involved, are groups of drawings, sculptures, and photographs accompanying each cycle, making the individual cycles complete projects in multiple mediums. With Cremaster 4 as the first, chronologically in the series, it was made at a point before the cinematic scope of Cremaster 5, 2, and 3. There is as much video in the format of the fourth installment, as to provide a link between this early point in the cycle to even his more performance-based Drawing Restraint series which has also continued throughout his career.