Rating: 
Summary: Huh?
Review: As visually beautiful as the movie was it was boring, lack luster and so filled with boring symbolism that it isn't possible to follow without a companion guide. This book isn't that guide. It's a more expensive version than the movie was to see in the theatre but a lot less painful.
Rating:
Summary: Huh?
Review: As visually beautiful as the movie was it was boring, lack luster and so filled with boring symbolism that it isn't possible to follow without a companion guide. This book isn't that guide. It's a more expensive version than the movie was to see in the theatre but a lot less painful.
Rating: 
Summary: Art as eruption
Review: I find the responses to Barney's productions amusing because I am aware they represent personal identifications, in spite of the cries of mysogyny, with a typical white masculine ideology rather than critical responses. And that is one of the important aspects of the Cremaster Cycle: a visceral response: a cremaster-kick, if you will. It erupts in your face. Out of Barney, all over you. It is twisted but blunt. Many reviews--just browse the Amazon universe--represent the world in dialectical oppositions. Out here we have mostly the following: good Barney/bad Barney; sexist Barney/not-sexist Barney; trash Barney/intellectual Barney. Whatever! We wish it were so simple. No learning possiblein a world where an authoritative voice is deferred to when assigning a positive or negative value to an event or idea or individual. A work of art isn't "bad" because it presents sexist, mysogynistic, repulsive, scrumptious, beautiful, ugly, erotic, pornographic, cannibalistic, testicular, white, racist, nationalistic images/symbols/myths all-together and at once both as aesthetic and poetic--as form and content. We must ask: Who is the art for? What is it supposed to do? Why choose the specific genre? At what is it directed? Maybe we can begin accepting that we need art that refuses simple consumption because work that refuses simple consumption refuses to fortify the dominant and oppressive ideological structures in society. So, Barney's public masturbation is a positive act. Particularly funny are the reviewers who discuss the art space of the Gugg in NY more than Barney's work documented in that space. That said: I find the Cremaster Cycle pleasing, troubling, and extremely boring at different times. I think it is beautiful. And I find it technically wonderful. Anyways... Better to wallow in complexity than to knee-jerk my way towards over-generalization. But, see it for yourself and then discuss your cremaster response publicly. That's the point. Cremaster 3 (and 1 & 2) is being screened around the country right now; some places are showing the entire cycle. Art should intervene and disrupt. And if it cannot irrupt the public sphere, it should erupt all over it.
Rating: 
Summary: Barney may change your life
Review: I suggest you experience Barney's work for yourself. In the end what you do with the elements of Barney's work, what it says to you, will say more about yourself than anything Barney could have intended. "Cremaster" has several different meanings: the constant raising and lowering of testicles from temperature (cause/effect), emotional state. Cremaster has also found its way to represent the point at which the male testicles drop during puberty. Cremaster is also the claw on a moth used in metamorphoses. Everyone has heard a different meaning. The first six weeks a fetus is all female according to The Cremaster Cycle. Cremaster 1 represents this 1st stage - all female. Barney calls this stage pure creative potential. Cremaster 2 represents the focus of this pure potential and the restraint of this potential. A change with the addition of the male direction immediately reduces this potential. A unity has been broken with the addition of the male direction. The series is about many things, but this unity, this desire to get back to the pure potential is what made it so human. This work has so many different dimensions. I thought the series was brilliant. I am really impressed with Barney's work on the public - it has stirred up some real strong emotions to say the least.
Rating:
Summary: Barney may change your life
Review: I suggest you experience Barney's work for yourself. In the end what you do with the elements of Barney's work, what it says to you, will say more about yourself than anything Barney could have intended. "Cremaster" has several different meanings: the constant raising and lowering of testicles from temperature (cause/effect), emotional state. Cremaster has also found its way to represent the point at which the male testicles drop during puberty. Cremaster is also the claw on a moth used in metamorphoses. Everyone has heard a different meaning. The first six weeks a fetus is all female according to The Cremaster Cycle. Cremaster 1 represents this 1st stage - all female. Barney calls this stage pure creative potential. Cremaster 2 represents the focus of this pure potential and the restraint of this potential. A change with the addition of the male direction immediately reduces this potential. A unity has been broken with the addition of the male direction. The series is about many things, but this unity, this desire to get back to the pure potential is what made it so human. This work has so many different dimensions. I thought the series was brilliant. I am really impressed with Barney's work on the public - it has stirred up some real strong emotions to say the least.
Rating:
Summary: Cremaster Cycle 3 in a handy book form
Review: If you are a Barney fan, this is a must-have companion to the huge Cremaster Cycle "Bible" being sold at the showings and on Amazon. This is basically a book of stills from the film, in the order they occur. Relive such exciting moments as Matthew Barney getting his teeth smashed in at the racetrack! Aimee Mullins walking on creepy Perspex prosthetic legs! and Mathew Barney in the dentist's chair having rectal surgery! He might be a genius, he might be a nut, but he's a damn fine artist, sculptor and filmmaker.
Rating: 
Summary: Last laugh anyone?
Review: Let us all hold our victory applause for the exhibits and publishing just yet. Barney�s work has yet to have a privilege of withstanding the test of time. I feel that it is no coincidence that majority to which this work appeals is a relatively young audience. This work is based purely on shock value. The importance is amplified based on investments of time, scale and magnitude to produce this visual product. An illusion of a puzzle renders meaningfulness to meaningless. Perhaps what saddens me most is that work truly speaks of our generation: its culture, depth of worth, nevertheless, hooray Mr. Barney for channeling that in such a touting fashion.
Rating:
Summary: Last laugh anyone?
Review: Let us all hold our victory applause for the exhibits and publishing just yet. Barney's work has yet to have a privilege of withstanding the test of time. I feel that it is no coincidence that majority to which this work appeals is a relatively young audience. This work is based purely on shock value. The importance is amplified based on investments of time, scale and magnitude to produce this visual product. An illusion of a puzzle renders meaningfulness to meaningless. Perhaps what saddens me most is that work truly speaks of our generation: its culture, depth of worth, nevertheless, hooray Mr. Barney for channeling that in such a touting fashion.
Rating:
Summary: Everythng a book of photography should be-- gorgeous.
Review: Matthew Barney, Cremaster 3 (The Guggenheim Museum, 2003) Matthew Barney's oft-celebrated and yet little-seen Cremaster series of films was finally completed with the release of Cremaster 3 in 2002. As a celebration, the Guggenheim mounted a showing of stills from the five films in early 2003. This is the book printed as a companion to the showing. As should be expected from both Barney and the Guggenheim, it's a sumptuous release. The vast majority of the book is nothing but photographs, though a few pieces of text flit in and out. The movies have an almost dadaesque sense of both being rooted in a place and being dislocated; the book, too, bears that same mark. You know, for example, you're looking at a closeup of a Chrysler hood ornament. But why? And what's that in the reflection, so very distorted? What's Barney's fascination with the Chrysler Building, anyway? Why is Aimee Mullins even more gorgeous when made up to look like a leopard? Of course, none of these questions actually get answered. But the films, and this book, are about visual experience anyway, unless you want to spend hundreds of hours dissecting the intricate layers of symbolism with which every second of the films are invested. In which case, go to it, and let us know what you find; for most folks, I think the simple beauty of the images will be enough. Either way, it's certainly worth a look. ****
Rating:
Summary: Exquisite nightmare worlds --
Review: The world of Matthew Barney is one wherein Jodorowsy collides with the chilly vistas of Helmut Newton. Monstrous grotesques march against backdrops of Art Deco splendour and the viewer is taken to new rapturous heights. Like splatter films? High fashion? Art? Perversion? CREMASTER 3 has it all. The cremaster, as every child knows, is the muscle that controls a man's testicular sac. This, literally, is Art with Balls.
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