MATTHEW BARNEY

I was watching a show about Freemasons today, a subject which I find fascinating and delicious. The Masonic world is built on secret rituals and these symbols that are peppered throughout our visual landscape yet are so shrouded in mystery. I've always been curious about anthropology, semiotics, how signs and signifiers change according to culture and how powerfull some of these symbols can be depending on their context. The idea of rituals and symbols, their history and origin is especially interesting when it is linked to religion, wether it be organized religion or paganism, secret societies or cults. Matthew Barney is an incredible artist and he's created a series of films entitled The Cremaster Cycles. They are not really movies by definition but moving, living installations. The third movie in the cycle deals with Masonic Rituals and the sometimes absurd, abstract and graphic nature of these rituals and how they are linked to spirituality. It's more of an experience than anything else. Check it out. It's next level.



http://www.cremaster.net/crem3.htm

Barney's most recent film, Drawing Restraint 9, was made with his wife Bjork. Also visually stunning, it is worth a see.