MATTHEW BARNEY: NO RETRAINT

What To Do With 45,000 Pounds Of Petroleum Jelly?

by Brian Hughes

I will admit, I didn’t know Matthew Barney from the big purple dinosaur variety. This is what primarily drove me to see this film. And I am glad I did, if for nothing else I was able to witness a unique artist at work. An artist art critic Michael Kimmelmann of The New York Times called the most important artist of his generation. But was that enough to garnish this documentary with a good review? Not really.

The film documents Barney’s shooting of Drawing Restraint 9 – a series of works based on the idea that Barney must physically “restrain” himself, or create physical obstacles in the way of his creations. For instance, the documentary depicts video clips of Drawing Restraint 1 in which Barney is harnassed to a bungee cord apparatus while trying to paint on a wall, only to keep getting pulled back from whence he came. It also closes with Drawing Restraint 10 in which Barney jumps up and down on a trampoline type of device while trying to draw on a ceiling. This concept seems to make perfect sense if you are a former Yale football quarterback turned model turned imaginative artist – as Barney is. It seems quite an original idea to me to mix football or sports with sculpture or film, as Barney did in Cremaster 1, where he shot Busby Berkeley type images in Bronco Stadium in Boise, Idaho. But I also can’t help but to wonder why any true artist would have to create more obstacles and restraints than he already has? Isn’t most art a blood letting in and of itself? Anyone who has tried to write a screenplay, or dedicated five years of their lives to creating a novel or piece of artwork will tell you that one need not create obstacles in a world that is rife with them. Maybe a Yale graduate, ex-football player, and model from the Northwest needs to create obstacles for himself.

Barney likes to work with petroleum jelly: 45 thousand pounds of it to be exact. And he has decided to take over the Nisshin Maru whaling vessel off the coast of Nagasaki to the confusion of the ships’ workers, who seem to have no problem dealing with an eccentric American artist in lieu of a six figure check. Why is he filling a mold with petroleum jelly in the shape of a whale on this vessel? To somehow link us to a prehistoric past. Why is he dressed in a garish fur coat? To somehow transform himself from land mammal to whale. These molds symbolize to Barney whales and the restraints put upon them. As Barney points out, “It all comes together as a system that can’t overcome its condition. These pieces are important in admitting that.” If you’re wondering what that meant, don’t worry, I’m still trying to figure it out. But maybe it would have been clearer if Drawing Restrain 9 were screened in conjunction with this documentary.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike the weirdness. I don’t get down on not being able to understand it all, for I truly believe an artist has his or her meaning for a piece of work, and that I am not suppose to understand everything. It’s just that the film seems to be more about lauding Barney then discussing the ideas of his work.

What I did appreciate in the documentary, other than the Japanese crews’ reaction, was that Barney refuses to look at material objects at face value. He wants to transform them into something else. I also liked that, though his mind is wildly imaginative, he seems like a very likeable and normal looking guy: A guy who takes the work seriously, but has a good laugh once and a while about it. I was also transfixed and inspired by his determination. He is dedicated, and his wife, the singer/ songwriter Bjork, seems to be the perfect companion for such an artist and this journey to Japan. She is also a character in Drawing Restrain 9 and shares a scene with him in which they cut into each other’s legs with knives in a tank of water.

Go see this film if you want to know more about Matthew Barney and modern art. Though, I would probably advise you seeing the film Drawing Restraint 9 before catching this flick. Alison Chernick, the director, was pretty much invisible, choosing to shoot the documentary in a conventional fashion, with art critics praising Barney at every turn. I Would have liked to have seen a less conventional documentary mirroring the unconventional Barney who seems to be the Yoko Ono to Bjork’s John Lennon.

reviewed: 2007-01-05

Related links:
IMDB: Matthew Barney: No Restraint (2006)