It is called Drawing Restraint 9 and it is not a movie. What is it? That's the question everyone should ask before even speaking a single word of judgment. It looks like a movie, you can see it in a theater, and it has stars (Björk and Matthew Barney), so why am I being so picky about the movie denomination?
Well, first it is because a movie is generally determined by its need of at least reimbursing its production. Therefore, it is determined by its need to attract people and please them. In a certain way, Because Matthew Barney is an artist and not a movie director engaged in the cinema industry, he does films the way an artist does his art, with no boundaries but the technique he uses. In other words he did the movie he wanted the same way Pollock did the canvas he wanted, the public comes second.
Like he previously did with the Cremaster Cycle (5 films), Barney explored his creations with a movie camera but also with drawings, sculptures, and photography. I said "with" but I could have said "like". He films like he could have painted.
Although this little lecture tries to differentiate Art from its industry, the fact that Drawing Restraint 9 can be seen at the movie theater has different consequences that kind of tore apart my first thoughts. In some ways, Barney transforms each cinema which plays his film into a temporary art gallery. He brings his art in front of a quiet seated spectator and thus in a way changes the relationship between Art and the public. I went to see it last Saturday, it was full. The crowd wasn't the one you usually see at Barney's vernissage at Barbara Gladstone, and most of them were surprised, disgusted, or totally lost. They came to see that movie with Björk and they had to endure 2 hours of contemporary art...
Putting contemporary art outside of the gallery is in a sense the piece of art itself. Most people don't know who Maurizio Cattelan, Douglas Gordon, Paul Mc Carthy, Cindy Sherman, and Jeff Koons are. And one of the main reasons is because contemporary artists are imprisoned in the little contemporary art world, the galleries, the hermetic magazines, the art fairs, and the Biennales. I don't care to figure out whether it's good or bad. I'd rather know if showing Damien Hirst installations in Central Park is even possible. I mean, hello! Mathew Barney's movie is at the cinema, I am wondering what's next, Marina Abramovitch at the Jay Leno Tonight Show?
I dropped all these names so people can Google them the same way some others ate popcorn in front of Drawing Restraint 9. Here is the trailer for the curious.
