Matthew Barney, ‘Cremaster Cycle’, 1994-2002

I like Matthew Barney’s works especially his performances. One of the prominent works of his is the 300 minutes long video called, ‘Cremaster Cycle’, 1994-2002. I find it to be such an extraordinary performance piece because it marks the end of a project that consumed almost ten years of Matthew Barney’s life. ‘Cremaster Cycle’, 1994-2002 is a series of films, with a total running time of just under seven hours. Biologically, the cremaster is a muscle that raises and lowers the testicles. Barney uses the descension of the cremaster muscle as a symbol for the onset of male gender (which appears about nine weeks after a fetus is conceived). The five films progress from a state of undifferentiated gender (a fully ascended cremaster muscle, represented by the floating Goodyear Blimps and other symbols), through the organism’s struggle to resist gender definition, to the inevitable point where maleness can no longer be denied (complete descension of the cremaster and release of the testes).