Cremaster Cycle

Created by: Matthew Barney
When: starting 2 pm Sunday, March 14, 2004
Where: Madstone Theaters

Cremaster 3: Mahabyn, 2002
Photo by Chris Winget
© Matthew Barney

Matthew Barney's epic Cremaster cycle (1994-2002) is a self-enclosed aesthetic system consisting of five feature-length films that explore processes of creation.

The cycle unfolds not just cinematically, but also through the photographs, drawings, sculptures, and installations the artist produces in conjunction with each episode. Its conceptual departure point is the male cremaster muscle, which controls testicular contractions in response to external stimuli.

The project is rife with anatomical allusions to the position of the reproductive organs during the embryonic process of sexual differentiation: Cremaster 1 represents the most "ascended" or undifferentiated state, Cremaster 5 the most "descended" or differentiated.

The cycle repeatedly returns to those moments during early sexual development in which the outcome of the process is still unknown—in Barney's metaphoric universe, these moments represent a condition of pure potentiality. As the cycle evolved over eight years, Barney looked beyond biology as a way to explore the creation of form, employing narrative models from other realms, such as biography, mythology, and geology.