Matthew Barney (b. 1967)
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION
Matthew Barney (b. 1967)

Cremaster 5: Bocáss el

Details
Matthew Barney (b. 1967)
Cremaster 5: Bocáss el
four color coupler prints in acrylic artist's frames
each: 38 1/8 x 27¼ x 1 in. (96.8 x 69.2 x 2.5 cm.)
Executed in 1997.
Provenance
Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York
Literature
M. Barney, Matthew Barney: Cremaster 5, Frankfurt 1997 (stills illustrated).
Exhibited
Cologne, Museum Ludwig; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Matthew Barney: The Cremaster Cycle, June 2002-May 2003, pp. 451 and 478 (illustrated, far left element), pp. 434 and 477 (illustrated, center left element) and pp. 455 and 479 (illustrated, far right element).
Sale room notice
This work is number one from an edition of three, plus one artist's proof.

Lot Essay

As the curtain rises in Cremaster 5, the final descension occurs. The last stop on the Cremaster Cycle's trans-Atlantic arc, the scenes that unfold in Budapest are harbingers of the end. Magic and theater frame this climax of love, realization and expurgation.
These four works encapsulate the captured drama of this cycle. The mood is that of high opera and the music and mythos are clearly palpable. "Watching Mr. Barney's imagery evolve of two axes--the axis of its conception and the axis of its creation--quickens the mind even as it overloads the senses" The present work perfectly captures the thematic and dogmatic struggles the artist wished to convey while also at the unique moment met at the end of the full cycle.

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