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Matthew Barney’s ‘Secondary’ at His Long Island City Studio

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Matthew Barney’s Secondary, a five-channel video installation, is now showing at his studio in Long Island City through June 25.

Secondary comes four years after Matthew Barney’s last large-scale exhibition, 2019’s Redoubt. Like its predecessor, Secondary features movement-based narrative in addition to materials- and aural-based elements. It’s also short (for Barney): one hour, though it does benefit from multiple viewings. Here Barney again collaborates with composer Jonathan Bepler. Also, notably, top creative billing is shared with movement director David Thomson, indicating the enhanced importance of dance and movement to Secondary compared to Barney’s earlier pieces.

A synopsis, excerpted from the exhibition’s website, is as follows:

Secondary maps two different narratives onto each other, using movement as the formal through-line. The first describes the complex overlay of violence and spectacle inherent in American football, and more broadly within American culture. Barney’s personal involvement in the sport served as a starting point for the development of this project. The extreme physical and psychological conditions of the game have been abstracted in Barney’s art practice since his earliest work, and now provide a context for this subject that is both retrospective and a new, direct engagement.

The significant risk of the game became clear, and made a lasting impression on Barney as a young player, through an incident that took place in a professional football game on August 12, 1978 where Jack Tatum, a defensive back for the Oakland Raiders, delivered an open field hit on Darryl Stingley, a wide receiver for the New England Patriots. Stingley was left paralyzed. The impact, and Stingley’s resulting catastrophic injury, became mythic in scale through its relentless replay in sports media. It was also a watershed case for the reform of rules protecting the bodies of athletes, which remains a polemic in football today, now gathering critical mass in the media. Secondary’s underlying plotline examines these charged aspects of football—and, specifically, Barney’s memory of that play in 1978—through a movement vocabulary that focuses on each element of the game, from drills to pre-game rituals to the moments of impact. It seeks to explore the complicated overlay of actual violence and its currency as image within the sport and the culture at large.

The parallel narrative in Secondary is a material-based choreography where the substances Barney uses to make sculpture—lead, aluminum, terracotta, and plastic, all in various states of liquidity—are generated, formed, and manipulated by the performers in real time. These materials speak to qualities of strength, elasticity, fragility, and memory, and each, in its own way, embodies a character. The athletes cast in Secondary are played by professional dancers and by Barney, and they range broadly in age, but with an emphasis on older bodies.

Matthew Barney

Secondary was filmed in and around Barney’s warehouse studio, which also serves as the exhibition space. Between producing the work and opening the space for public exhibition, the studio has been cleared of tools, materials, and associated ephemera, leaving an open expanse that more resembles an athletic facility than an atelier. While viewing the film, one sees an earlier version of the same site put to different use. Mr. Barney has demurred in the past when repeatedly presented with the prospect of River of Fundament (and other works) being examples of gesamtkunstwerk (“total work of art”), principally because Barney also associates that term with the artist building the “container” in which the work is presented—his primary example being Richard Wagner’s Bayreuther Festspielhaus, which was built to the composer’s specifications and exclusively stages his works to this day. That said, while Barney didn’t build the warehouse in which Secondary was filmed and presented, he is responsible for manipulating said container to meet his purposes. Per his stated usage of the term, Secondary comes much closer to realizing a gesamtkunstwerk than his earlier pieces. (Whether or not he would agree with that is another matter. Probably not.)

Amid the vast gray setting of steel, concrete, and support columns is a large, strikingly colorful field of artificial turf, in the center of which is the Field Emblem, an idée fixe from throughout Barney’s oeuvre that in the past he has specifically related to football. Hanging above the field is a three-sided jumbotron, similar to that which one would see at a professional sporting event. Additional screens are also placed near each of the field’s corners, much like the screens placed throughout an arena or stadium. Floodlights are mounted to establish the field as the central focal point. To one side is a makeshift press box of sorts and to the other is a row of benches. Viewers are welcome to watch the screens from the field, the benches, or to walk around and change perspective throughout the 60-minute duration (the length of a football game, without breaks or stoppages).

The film plays across five screens simultaneously: the jumbotron shows the same feed on each of its three sides, and the other four screens vary throughout—sometimes showing different perspectives of the same scene, sometimes showing different scenes entirely, and other times synchronizing either in pairs or across four or all five screens. Hence the film promoting repeated viewings. I was present for multiple screenings and saw several new things each time. Additionally, each screen has its own sound feed, adding another layer that phases in and out of sync.

matthew barney secondary
Viewers watch in the arena / exhibition space

Though abstracted, familiar rituals play out. First we see the various participants prepare: athletes train and warm up; the owner facilitates the site; fans excitedly await the game; referees consult one another; everyone gets in place (the teams and referees take the field; the owner goes to the press box; fans gather around); the national anthem is given focused attention; the game is played; the fans leave; the site resets for the next contest. The assorted preparations constitute a majority of the film, but they gradually build narrative tension, as the viewer knows that the game and injury will eventually occur, but not when or how. Also, it’s not unlike a real athletic regimen: most of the time is spent in preparation and maintenance—training, running drills, practicing maneuvers—and is punctuated by the occasional game (or race or event, etc.), particularly in professional American football which follows a roughly weekly game schedule during its regular season.

Throughout approximately the first half of the film, bodies work solo, in concert with one another, and in dialogue with materials. Various actions, from routine movements such as throwing a ball and assorted calisthenics to repetitive head trauma, are deconstructed by performers David Thomson, Shamar Watt, Raphael Xavier, Wally Cardona, Ted Johnson, and Matthew Barney. Similarly, numerous materials are physically engaged: tubing, garbage bins, polycaprolactone (PCL), clay, a muddy trench. Just as a game showcases, at least in part, much of the preparation that has gone into it, the game in Secondary—including the national anthem as the opening act— is where all of the pieces come together. It features movement (solo and in concert), music (solo and in concert), and materials (in various stages of rigidity). The game is also the first time we see all performers (athletes, officials, fans, etc.) in the same space and interacting to some degree as a group. Tension is heightened by finally bringing the two teams into direct confrontation, as they’ve been presented as training separately up until this point (though all within the studio and sometimes near one another).

One noteworthy fact about the the six performers who portray the athletes is that most of them don’t have backgrounds playing football. (Barney, who played football while at Yale, has woven athleticism generally and football specifIcally through much of his output.) I highlight this because Barney generally prefers practitioners over actors—in this case, one would assume a football player. That said, by selecting movement artists, the performers were able to home in on specific movements and actions divorced from the context of a specific game or sport. A film ostensibly about football, at least in one regard, does not show a literal sequence one would see in an actual game of football, yet it powerfully conveys a message about such all the same. (I’m reminded of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, an opera about a song contest yet lacking a single unbroken aria.) However because the game is so ubiquitous in America, most people have at least a passive familiarity with the sport, its presentation, and its actions. Secondary does include one actor: Thomas Kopache as Raiders owner Al Davis. His expressive gaze haunts the film, particularly during the national anthem.

Because the subject is so familiar, it can be approached indirectly and still be legible to a wider audience. Consequently, Secondary is the most accessible of Barney’s major works, at least in recent years. While not mainstream by any means, the subject matter, length, and overall presentation (playing in a loop in an open gallery) are likely to be more welcoming than scheduled screenings of feature-length (or longer) works about the cosmic hunt or bespoke Egyptian mythology or the like. While it does lack explicit imagery, a foreboding sense of violence—immediate, psychological, cultural—permeates much of the running time.

Composer Jonathan Bepler shapes a compelling sonic experience. Like Redoubt, the music and sound here are more complementary and decorative as opposed to a shared centerpiece, as with the operatic River of Fundament. However, a noteworthy change in Secondary is that, I believe, a vast majority of the music and sound has a diegetic source. (It may be occasionally treated after the fact, but “external” sounds are rare.) While there may be seemingly non-diegetic instances—e.g., hearing sounds from one screen while looking at another, or seeing vocalizations begin with one character while the camera cuts to another character—there is little-to-no semblance of an external score. As with the film and the site, the music is contained within the film’s universe itself. Save some percussive elements made corporeally or with found objects, much of the rest of the score is vocal, particularly in the vein of the free vocalizations found in River of Fundament and Redoubt. Several of the recurring vocal techniques mimic those found at a sporting event. Examples include:
– Vocalizations to mimic the sound of a referee’s whistle, occasionally made by the performers portraying referees
– Screaming and rasping reminiscent of a crowd’s cheers, often made by those portraying fans
– Quick staccato utterances of “hut” and other syllables, often done by the referees when consulting one another
– Groans and croaks redolent of an injured player

A pivotal scene dramatizes Barney’s dissection of the national anthem ritual. After the players and referees take the field, the owner ascends to the press box, and the fans gather around, soprano Jacquelyn Deshchidn, a Chiricahua Apache, adorned in gold and wearing wings, takes center stage (on or near the Field Emblem). Instead of singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Deshchidn performs an aggressive and mournful improvisatory piece lasting several minutes. Deceptively, their piece begins on “O,” but the similarities quickly end. Here Deshchidn is accompanied by the chorus of referees portrayed by Isabel Crespo Pardo, Jeffrey Gavett, and Kyoko Kitamura. Notably, this passage includes the only instance (lasting a couple of seconds at most) of consonant harmony throughout the whole film, occurring at approximately the 46-minute mark, and its rarity and unexpectedness yields a great impact. Deschchidn’s anthem also includes the lone clear word uttered in all of Secondary, “bombs,” which is repeated in quick succession at varying intervals and dynamics by both soloist and chorus. Throughout much of their performance, Deshchidn locks eyes with Kopache’s Al Davis as he glares down from the press box.

matthew barney secondary deshchidn
Deschidn during the anthem (Jerry Saltz watches, sans coffee)

It should be noted that this is the third successive major work that situates an Indigenous American character in a central role: Jacquelyn Deshchidn’s national anthem in Secondary, Sandra Lamouche’s hoop dance in Redoubt, and, among others, Chief David Beautiful Bald Eagle as Norman III (i.e., the version of Norman closest to being divine) as well as pow wow ensemble Mystic River in River of Fundament. Though representing different tribes and traditions, it’s no coincidence that Barney has centered the generally shared Indigenous American experience when exploring violence, mythology, nature, and industrialization in American contexts.

Signature Barney elements appear throughout the film. Plastics and metals are engaged in various states: viscous PCL handled by Watt and Cardona; dumbbells molded from clay and plastic; a triptych of sculptures resulting from the impacts between Thomas and Xavier recreating the Stingley-Tatum trauma. There are also references and allusions to earlier work. In one sequence, a pair of athletes engage a large salt block, such as those seen in River of Fundament. The trench itself, as well as Watt’s physical dialogue with the mud and the filth also have obvious parallels to River of Fundament. In addition to further exploring the boundaries of dance and movement highlighted in Redoubt, a sculpture from the same film is seen in the studio during an early sequence of Secondary. Of course, the concept of creating via movement and resistance is at the heart of Barney’s long-running Drawing Restraint series. The Field Emblem has permeated Barney’s work for decades, including being highlighted in Cremaster Cycle and Drawing Restraint 9, among others. And football has been a recurring subject and influence in his work going back to some of his earliest output such as Facility of DECLINE.

The current exhibition includes more than just the film. The site itself is, as Barney notes, a “central character” in Secondary, so one may move around the studio, including onto the field (and sit or lay if preferred). The trench remains and may be viewed up close. The press box, though closed off, still stands. Within it are a storyboard and a sculpture, possibly a water casting. A work on canvas, a take on the field of play featuring the Field Emblem, hangs on one wall of the studio. Bringing the show full circle, an Otto jersey is also displayed.

Trench, press box

I highly recommend Secondary if you have the opportunity. Although it may possibly screen elsewhere in future months or years, seeing the film where it was created—in the space adapted for that purpose—is a singular experience, one I’ll always treasure.

Matthew Barney’s ‘Redoubt’ at Yale University Art Gallery

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I was fortunate to attend Saturday’s premiere of Redoubt, Matthew Barney‘s new film and accompanying exhibition, at Yale University Art Gallery, the artist’s alma mater. The intimate new work is smaller in narrative scope and scale than its predecessors River of Fundament (which still has me under its spell), Drawing Restraint 9, and The Cremaster Cycle. But that in no way diminishes it. The multimedia collection is powerful, engaging, and promises to stay with you long after you leave.

https://vimeo.com/319603163

Redoubt, the 134-minute film, features only six characters. (There are also four others, a bartender and three bar patrons, who tangentially appear for several minutes.) Its name literally means a defensive fortification, but the word is also used regarding political movements. Specifically, American Redoubt is a survivalist movement in the northwest region of the US, including Idaho, where the work takes place. The entire wordless film is set in and around Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, not far from Barney’s childhood home of Boise. It’s visually and sonically subtle to an effectively unsettling degree. A minimalist but enchanting score by Jonathan Bepler accompanies the mostly stark imagery: snow-covered panoramas, slow pans, careful and deliberate gestures, and extended slow-to-moderately paced physical sequences. Peter Strietmann‘s cinematography captures the essence of the wilderness’s micro and macro elements—from the privacy of a hammock or shared gaze to the vastness of an untamed wilderness in which you can easily be lost and forgotten.

The complete absence of dialogue further emphasizes the work’s physicality. Movements and gestures ordinarily ignored when accompanied by spoken word are exponentially magnified when the primary mode of communication. The that end, four of film’s main cast (2/3 of the six) are portrayed by dancers. Of those four, three of them execute their choreography in challenging external conditions, a nod to Matthew Barney’s trademark Drawing Restraint series. Such conditions include knee- and waist-deep snow, sub-zero temperatures, working within tight spaces (e.g., in a hammock or on a small tarp), and while scaling and descending from trees.

Just as Barney worked with operatic language in River of Fundament, he addresses dance head-on in Redoubt. I should note that much of the choreography is done by cast member Eleanor Bauer, who performed a dance sequence in Act III of River of Fundament as one of the Little Queens in Usermare’s court.

As a brief synopsis, I’ll simply quote the one on the Yale University Art Gallery’s website:

Set in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountain range, the film layers classical, cosmological, and American myths about humanity’s place in the natural world, continuing Barney’s long-standing preoccupation with landscape as both a setting and subject. Redoubt loosely adapts the myth of Diana, goddess of the hunt, and Actaeon, a hunter who trespasses on her and is punished… [T]he characters communicate through choreography that echoes and foreshadows their encounters with wildlife.

Yale University Art Gallery

In this abstract adaptation of the myth of Diana, Barney also addresses the reintroduction of wolves into Idaho, hunting, weapons and artillery, survivalism and its relation to regional politics, Native culture and its relation the state, the land management bureaucracy, and more. Continuing his tradition of casting practitioners over actors to fill the roles, the cast includes:
Diana, goddess of the hunt: Anette Wachter, record-holding champion sharpshooter
Calling Virgin, attendant of Diana: Eleanor Bauer, dancer and choreographer
Tracking Virgin, attendant of Diana: Laura Stokes, dancer, aerialist, and contortionist
Electroplater, alchemist and assistant to Engraver: K. J. Holmes, dancer
Engraver, a U.S. Parks ranger: Matthew Barney, artist
Hoop Dancer, Native dancer: Sandra Lamouche, Native performer

The narrative is divided into six hunts (days) plus a prologue, stemming from a conversation Barney had with a hunter who claimed that tracking and hunting a wolf would take at least six days. Over the course of the work, Diana, accompanied by her attendants, tracks and hunts a wolf. Being the goddess of the hunt, Diana’s actions are portrayed as more of a sacred duty—something she must complete—rather than a sport of choice. She portrays arguably no emotion at all in any of her actions. Meanwhile, the Engraver (Actaeon), roams the wilderness, capturing scenes with his engraved drawings, returning each evening to his shared home (a trailer adorned with survivalist trappings) with the Electroplater, a maternal figure of sorts who both transforms his engravings via electrochemical baths as well as ritualistically and cosmologically translates his work and the story at large into part of the Cosmic Hunt mythology. Eventually, the Engraver happens upon Diana’s hunt, at which point he is drawn to capturing her image. As punishment for this, wolves eventually descend upon his trailer and destroy his art.

Reintroduction: State five

In Hunt 5, the Engraver briefly leaves the mountains and drives to a nearby town, where he happens upon the Hoop Dancer while she quietly prepares a private performance of her own. Notably, she is in an empty American Legion hall that is heavily decorated with US military paraphernalia. And when she dances, we, the audience, cannot hear her music, as she is listening to her iPhone with headphones. We can only watch. Some early reviews have remarked on how out of place this seems to be, but to me that’s the point. The one Native character is removed from the land, surrounded by four militaristic walls (and yet leaving the door to the outside open), and must conduct her ritual privately, whereas the five non-Native characters are allowed to carry out their own rites with abandon throughout the land. And the Engraver, who does briefly observe the Hoop Dancer, ultimately chooses not to capture her image.

The use of dance as a narrative device, much of it including contact improvisation, was quite effective, and the choreography and execution was engaging and thought-provoking. The dearth of sudden or quick movements in the film, both conveying the limitations of the harsh conditions in which its performed and illustrating the patience required when tracking and hunting, provided a subtle tension throughout. From the Virgins’ minimally adjusted gait—graceful and intentional, yet contrived to the slightest degree—while they follow Diana through the woods, to the manner in which they move their heads and limbs while looking for Diana’s prey, the smallest gestures often have the most lasting effects.

Additionally, dance is present throughout a vast majority of the film, even if not in the foreground. As an example, there is a scene in Hunt 2 in which Diana sits by a river and slowly cleans her handgun (in a manner later ritualistically emulated by her attendants toward the end of Hunt 6) while her attendants slowly bathe (through dance) in the water. Much of the time the camera focuses on Diana’s deliberate process, while the attendants can be seen slowly moving while partially submerged in the background.

In a directorial move that reminded me of River of Fundament, the Electroplater engages in an extended dance “monologue” in the film’s final scene, which is her first dance of note in the film (save for a cosmic pose struck in the prologue). In River of Fundament, Joan La Barbara, a legendary vocalist and master of extended techniques, portrays Norman Mailer’s widow. As such, she is present in most of the five-and-a-half-hour film, but she doesn’t sing until deep into the third act. When she does, just as with the Electroplater’s dance, it’s both surprising and powerful.

Further emphasizing the economical use of action, Diana herself discharges a firearm only a handful of times over the course of the story: twice to harm the Engraver’s work, and only two or three times directed toward prey (deer, a wolf). Instead, much of what is shown of Diana is her patiently tracking, waiting for, and considering her prey and rituals. It wasn’t just the jaw-dropping accuracy of a sharpshooter that Barney wanted from Wachter, but also to convey just how natural and instinctual Diana is with her tools and methods, and she more than delivered.

Jonathan Bepler’s minimal, mostly consonant score, which he performed himself along with some haunting vocal work by Megan Schubert (also of River of Fundament), provides an engaging, non-diegetic aural layer. While not tonal by any means, moments of heavy dissonance are few and far between, and are mostly saved for the wolves’ destruction of the Engraver’s art at the end. The sparse percussion, keyboards, synthesizers, and voice often imitate or complement the natural sounds captured in the wilderness, such as the crunching of snow, the howl of a wolf or flapping of a bird’s wings, a bubbling brook, and the snapping of branches. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish where the natural sounds end and the artificial ones begin.

[I’d be remiss to not mention a possible operatic allusion from the prologue. In what I believe is the first aerial view of the river flowing through the mountains, Bepler’s score is briefly—a few seconds at most—reminiscent (intentionally or not; I don’t know) of Richard Wagner‘s Rhein leitmotif as used in Das Rheingold and Götterdämmerung (particularly the latter’s French horn choir in the prelude to Act III). If intentional, it’s a clever nod to the past. If coincidence, this Wagnerian appreciated it nonetheless.]

Accompanying the film is the exhibition of sculptures, engravings, and electroplated works, which also debuted this weekend. The collection’s composition of metals, wood, and chemicals is a continuation of Barney’s processes he began exploring in River of Fundament. The engravings, which are featured in the film, are also show in various states of (d)evolution: with and without patina, and having undergone the electroplating process to varying degrees. The large-scale sculptures include molds made from and/or using burnt, felled trees from the Sawtooth Mountains.

Elk Creek Burn
Elk Creek Burn

I’d recommend both the exhibition as well as the film individually, but they’re best absorbed together if you can plan your visit accordingly. Redoubt will be at Yale University Art Gallery through June 16, and will subsequently show at Beijing’s UCCA at the end of 2019 and at London’s Hayward Gallery in 2020.

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UPDATE: Below is the artist talk that occurred immediately after the premiere screening. It features Matthew Barney in discussion with Pamela Franks. It’s probably for the best that the top of my head didn’t make into the bottom of the frame.


Further Down the ‘River of Fundament’

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Here we are. December 2016, nearly 2017. It’s been almost two-and-a-half years since I saw Matthew Barney’s River of Fundament exhibition at Munich’s Haus der Kunst. Ten months have passed since I saw the film at Cleveland’s Museum of Contemporary Art. In that time, I’ve read and listened to quite a bit on the topic — including finishing Norman Mailer’s Ancient Evenings, and Okwui Enwezor’s Matthew Barney: River of Fundament (Haus der Kunst’s official exhibition catalogue), and devouring what relevant interviews with Mailer and Barney I can find — and have dug farther into Barney specifically, including material on The Cremaster Cycle. Needless to say, I remain under utterly fascinated by River of Fundament. Not only that, but my appreciation continues to grow deeper.

I don’t intend to dive too far deep into the weeds, but I’d like to add some thoughts to the initial review.

It took a while for me to finish Mailer’s Ancient Evenings. Work and parenting leave time for little else, and it’s difficult to find long stretches of time to fit in chunks of substantial reading. Though, I am glad I read it as I did in relation to seeing the film. I read the first portion of the book — until the beginning of the Night of the Pig — before heading to Cleveland, and it helped to have Mailer’s re-telling of the myth of Isis and Osiris (and Set and Nepthys) fresh in my mind in addition to the characters and context of Mailer’s original tale. For the rest of the novel, it was great to have River of Fundament as a reference, as there were many subtleties that stuck out to me that otherwise wouldn’t have. I made notes throughout the book and won’t catalogue them all in this post, but here are a couple of examples:

1. “Some life like none I had known before began to tremble in the metal.”
“The magic is in the metal itself.”
– p. 204 (Mailer, Norman. Ancient Evenings. New York: Random House, 2014.)

These are two quotes of many that reference metallurgy and its surrounding mysticism — a core facet of Barney’s entire cycle (film, sculptures, engravings, and more). Norman and Menenhetet seek higher power through reincarnation, and this is expressed in parallel through Barney’s ritualistic destruction and rebirth of the three automobiles. Along with this, however, is the hierarchy of metals that is referenced by Barney — lead and zinc giving way to copper and brass in an attempt to achieve gold.

rouge battery(Matthew Barney’s “Rouge Battery” at Haus der Kunst; photo by me)

2. “Before our eyes the river began to fester.” – p. 270
“I have made them see Thy Majesty as a crocodile, The Lord of Fear in the water…” – p. 303

These quotes evoke the imagery of Horus’s birth as depicted in River of Fundament. Before the deceased Trans Am crests the water, the river does indeed fester. (Furthermore, Mailer references froth or frothing at various points in the novel, which is also a visual and vocal device employed by both Barney and Bepler.) A dying Isis gives birth to Horus inside the Trans Am whilst a crocodile calmly lies below her feet and newborn.

birth of horus(River of Fundament production still, “Birth of Horus”)

nepthys(River of Fundament production still, Nepthys)

And that’s to say nothing of the myriad references to orchids, pigs, bulls (evoking Barney’s Guardian of the Veil, the cycle’s antecedent), gold leaf, and much more. Thinking back to River of Fundament, a number of other questions arise: Was Mailer’s Honey-Ball portrayed as one of Barney’s Ptah-nem-hotep’s little queens, specifically the one who serenades Norman I? Was Hathfertiti I’s tuneful and catchy “Ballad of the Bullfighter” inspired by Honey-Ball’s “sweet and innocent song” that, in its own way (but different from the film), gives way to “[crying] out”? (p. 476) And many more…

Some instances reference specific imagery; others are more abstract evocations. Nonetheless, I came across many such connections while reading Mailer’s tome. Despite the host of negative reviews, many, but not all, of which were a consequence of uninformed or lazy criticism (I guess program notes are optional these days), I’ve found Barney and Bepler’s work to be a richer experience than I had initially thought. (It was quite positive to begin with.)

Visuals and text aside, memories of the music regularly play in my mind’s ear. There are the few samples hidden throughout the official website, and snippets in the various trailers and interviews, but nothing too complete. After all, it’s operatic, and there are no real neatly-isolated arias. (Even if there were, I don’t think a Greatest Hits would be released, much to my personal chagrin.)

My growing interest feels like a nascent “project” of some sort. I don’t quite know what that may be, but the “work” slowly continues when I have the time. Perhaps I’ll log more here as I go.

More importantly, though, I feel it’s necessary to note some of these “findings” (subjective though they may arguably be in part). The mostly negative reaction to both Ancient Evenings and River of Fundament have led to scant information being available save a few diamonds in that rough. I may not change minds or alter the course of either’s reception, but I can certainly do my part to justify what I consider to be an important artistic achievement by Barney and Bepler.

(All River of Fundament-related posts are here.)

Matthew Barney & Jonathan Bepler’s ‘River of Fundament’

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Last weekend I finally saw Matthew Barney‘s River of Fundament, the 2014 film that is the operatic result of his years-long collaboration with Jonathan Bepler to explore, as Barney has put it in interviews, “the language of opera.” I wouldn’t dare call this “an official review,” particularly since I’m still absorbing the work seven days on, but I’d like to log some thoughts. I find it’s a worthwhile endeavor for a few reasons — some selfish, others less so:
• This is my site. I’ll do what I please.
• It may help me process it for my own understanding.
• A number of the legitimate reviews in circulation, particularly the more negative ones, are flawed in at least one or two common respects. (More on that below.) I may not be The New York Times or The Guardian, but I get some traffic. In light of that, I’d like to offer my own $0.02.

Any attempt at a concise summary of the film’s plot is futile, but I’ll try anyway. (You can read or hear far better synopsis straight from the source here.)

River of Fundament is a loose interpretation of Normal Mailer’s 1983 novel Ancient Evenings, and the content is largely informed by both the book as well as critic Harold Bloom’s review in The New York Review of Books. Ancient Evenings is a graphic tale of an ancient Egyptian nobleman who, through magic, reincarnates himself several times in order to attain greater knowledge and power, ultimately failing his third rebirth. The 700-page+ novel, which Mailer considered his best, was largely panned by critics because of its intensely sexual and scatological passages and themes. Traveling from womb to the outside world, the reincarnated must traverse a river of feces, or River of Fundament. Also included are tales of Isis and Osiris, Horus and Set, the Battle of Kadesh, a peculiar accounting of embalmment, and other detailed curiosities. Content aside, it is also written in an engaging but unusual manner. It’s less like you’re being told a story and more like you’re peeking into others’ lives. As for Bloom, his criticism suggested that Ancient Evenings was symbolically autobiographical for Mailer, in that he had hoped, through his life’s work, to eventually evolve or reincarnate into one of The Great American Authors, namely Ernest Hemingway (as represented by the pharaoh, per Bloom). That, and Bloom considered the sordid descriptions of ancient Egypt to be a comment on American society.

River of Fundament’s central setting is the wake of Norman Mailer, taking place in a precise reconstruction of Mailer’s Brooklyn home (which just so happens to be floating down the East River as a funeral barge). The protagonist is the dead Mailer himself, whose various reincarnations visit his own wake, each being reborn in a river of feces that flows beneath the home. The wake is full of friends, family, and spirits. (For an extra dose of realism, the wake guests include various levels of arterati, many of which could be tied to Mailer in one way or another, such as Fran Lebowitz, Salman Rushdie, Elaine Stritch, Dick Cavett, and more. The casting of Paul Giamatti as Ptah-nem-hotep and Maggie Gyllenhaal and Ellen Burstyn both as Hathfertiti also lend “celebrity” credence.) Over the course of the evening, the living gradually exit, leaving only the spirits as the successive Normans work to ascend to greatness. Parallel to this are three separate live performances filmed in Los Angeles, Detroit, and New York, the footage for which is interspersed throughout each of the film’s three acts, respectively. These performances each center around the ritualistic destruction and rebirth of an American-made car (harkening back to Bloom’s essay), with each car acting as a simulacrum for Norman’s spirit. Also, like Ancient Evenings, the live performances tell ancient tales. In Los Angeles’s REN the car (Norman) dies its first death, only to be reborn. The Detroit performance (KHU) is a retelling of Isis and Osiris, and Brooklyn’s BA includes the fight between Horus and Set, both symbolically and physically.

Throughout the three acts, these parallel worlds eventually blend together. In Act I, the wake’s living and spirits are separated — only the Egyptian characters (Hathfertiti, Ptah-nem-hotep, Set, Nepthys, Isis) able to communicate with both — and REN is presented as a flashback to another time. In Act II, the wake’s drunkenness begins to blur the living and spiritual worlds, which are affected by KHU‘s telling of Isis and Osiris. Finally, Act III sees Mailer’s house near completely taken over by the spirit realm (save Norman’s widow) while the wake crosses paths with the seemingly contemporaneous battle between Horus and Set.

I’ve been wanting to see this for over 18 months. Thankfully, the Cleveland Institute of Art‘s Cinematheque, in conjunction with the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland offered two screenings over the weekend and I was able to attend. Frustratingly, I missed the Detroit screenings in June 2014 because I didn’t even know about the work until I saw the beautiful, jaw-dropping exhibition at Munich’s Haus der Kunst the following month. (I touched upon the work in this earlier post.) It was a happy accident that I saw the Munich show — the first major one for the sculptures and film in tandem — as I simply visited the museum on my day off. Though, within about twenty minutes, I was admiring the Boat of Ra with equal parts wonder and awe. Many of the sculptures were products of or featured in the live performances (e.g., the destroyed cars), but the exhibit also featured pieces related to the wake setting as well as production stills and other small works. I spent at least a couple hours in the exhibit, devouring the program and gallery’s every description and evaluating every crevice. I hadn’t before heard of Ancient Evenings, but I got the gist, and I was fascinated by the juxtaposition of Egyptian mythology and the American auto industry (and, particularly living so close, Detroit). Once through the exhibit, I decided that I had to see the corresponding film. How or when were an absolute mystery, as it had already left Munich and was on its way to Australia.

So, after over a year-and-a-half of waiting, occasionally binge-reading what info I could find (including reviews), and often pondering about what the work would actually be like, I was delighted to have a regional screening and my calendar align. Once it looked as if the weather would be clear for the 3.5-hr.+ commute each way, I even started reading Ancient Evenings just to at least get a point of reference. (I also read Bloom’s criticism, of course.) By this point, though, I was shouldering a burdensome dichotomy: my own ponderous — idealized? — notions about what River would be, and the often mixed-to-negative reviews by those who seem to know Barney’s work well. (After all, it’s hard for me to get out of the house for fun these days between work and a baby at home, and I was committing significant mileage and hours to see it. What if it turned out to be a bust?) At the close of Act III, one of my initial thoughts after getting my wits about myself was: Did I see the same film as some of those critics?.

I was moved.

And I wasn’t just moved in a materialistic “I finally got to see it” sort of way, but rather genuinely so. It caught me off guard, as I knew so little about the actual content going in — or, rather, how it would be realized. Yeah, I read about it for many months, had already made my way through a good chunk of Ancient Evenings, and had seen the gallery exhibition, but the music and most of the images and action were a mystery to me. (Very much unlike, for example, my seeing my first Ring Cycle or Einstein on the Beach — I was well studied going in and went for the live experience.) Running just shy of six hours (not counting the two intermissions), River is relentless throughout save the brief, pastoral prelude and postlude. And, yes, as is made clear in every review (and I can attest), the work is graphic in nearly every way, occasionally bordering on the perverse. Much has been made of the scatological and sexual themes and depictions. Fair enough. However, in all honesty, I didn’t feel that the explicit moments overshadowed the rest of the work. (For example, the sexual occurrences are devoid of titillation.) While there’s at least a running thread of vulgarity throughout, it’s worth noting that more can be said of Ancient Evenings, the work upon which River is at least loosely based. Action aside, the film is beautifully and impeccably shot. The set pieces, makeup, color palettes, and camera work really synthesize into visual enchantment.

To say that River is rife with symbolism is to say that I breathe oxygen. Plenty is there for the uninitiated. However, the deeper one digs into both the film and its myriad sources, the more rewarding of an experience it is. For example, take KHU, Act II’s live performance from Detroit. If one knows the story of Isis and Osiris, particularly as told by Mailer, then you realize just how ingenious Barney’s interpretation is. Here, the resurrected Trans Am acts both as Norman’s spirit but also as Osiris, who is ultimately deceived and murdered by Set. Once his body has been found and retrieved from the river by FBI Agents Isis and Nepthys, Set (a detective, now portrayed as a double by both Eugene and Herbert Perry) commands that the body (car/spirit) now be dismembered and cut into fourteen pieces, all of which are then incinerated and poured into molten molds, creating some of the more impressive exhibit sculptures. At the end of the act, Isis then gives birth to Horus, who will attempt to avenge his father (Osiris) in Act III. If that weren’t enough, at the beginning of KHU, Barney (representing Osiris) is dressed as James Lee Byars in The Death of James Lee Byars, and placed inside a goldleaf-lined ambulance near his golden Trans Am. While this may seem like a non-sequitur at first, it’s worth noting that Byars was born in Detroit but died in Cairo, Egypt, and his Death was one of his most known pieces. It’s all there: Detroit, Egypt, art, gold (an idée fixe throughout River), and death.

If anything negatively affected me, it was the utter bleakness at the end of Act II and the first part of Act III. The wake’s drunken, origiastic peak in Act II and the pharaoh Usermare’s desacratory holding court at the beginning of Act III was rather discomforting. However, I assume that was Barney’s intended effect. Consequently, I came away disturbed more by Usermare’s character than with anything he (or his court) specifically did. I was affected but in no way offended.

I mentioned a number of reviews having shared flaws. Many of them (over-)emphasize the (legitimately) graphic elements. It’d be easy to assume, based on reading most reviews, that River is six hours of continuous, purposefully alienating revulsion. Not so. (It’d be like saying Strauss’s Salome is only noteworthy for brief nudity and a touch of necrophilia, saying nothing of the revolutionary musical score.) Who knows; perhaps it helps that I’m not easily disgusted. At any rate, I went in with an open and, admittedly, willing mind. On this point I’ll note that Barney has stated that he himself was uncomfortable with Mailer’s explicit nature in Ancient Evenings, implying that he wouldn’t let his own taste impede Mailer’s to a certain degree.

The most glaring failure of most of the reviews, however, relates to the music. River of Fundament is almost always reviewed strictly through the prism of visual art or as an art film (emphasized by the exhibitions and limited screenings, respectively), both of which it certainly is *in part*. However, this is truly a collaborative piece by Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler. That Bepler’s masterfully eclectic score is often treated like any old soundtrack is beyond egregious. Going back to the beginning, Barney and Bepler wanted to tackle “the language of opera.” And, donning my professor hat for a moment, “opera” connotes (mostly) continuous music. (Technically, River could be a singspiel, etc. because of the dialogue, but that’s why Barney often avoids labeling it as opera outright.) Bepler’s largely through-composed score takes up much of the film — I’d guess at least 4.75 hours of it. And it’s not just a sound bed, but wholly integral to the dramatic experience. Text is sung throughout — with both traditional and extended techniques — via aria, recitative, and sprechstimme, complete with solos, ensembles, and choruses. The libretto comes from excerpts of Ancient Evenings, Hemingway, Whitman, Emerson, Yeats, and others.

Also noteworthy is that most of the music is diegetic in some form or another. For example, when the music starts to emanate during Norman’s eulogy (about 20+ minutes into the film), it quietly emerges from the musicians attending the wake, almost as if they’re warming up during the reading. (The eulogy, read by Broadway legend Elaine Stritch, is an excerpt of Ancient Evenings.) Gradually, Stritch (and others) begin to incorporate elements of sprechstimme and recitative, taking the “live” performers and sound and making them extra-diegetic, more for the audience than the subjects. The music generally becomes more dissonant and “ancient” as the film progresses, with string instruments made from sheet metal in Act II’s KHU, and Act III’s BA featuring brass horns made from car parts, and Native American Indian music in Act III’s latter wake scenes. Bepler handles these transitions — both small and large — masterfully throughout.

The stylistic diversity is truly staggering, and, to my ears, is (almost) all very effective. (I was a little jarred by the R&B section near the end of Act II’s wake, possibly because it was juxtaposed with one of the more nihilistic scenes.) The score includes elements of classical, (free) jazz, folk, mariachi, soul, R&B, traditional Native American Indian, Partch-ian systems of both construction and micro-tonality, drum and bugle corps, and more. At first glance, that may seem ineffectually broad. However, when you consider some of the performers, it’s a veritable Who’s Who of each style, two of which perform main characters: modern voice pioneer Joan La Barbara (as Norman’s widow), and free jazz percussion pioneer Milford Graves (as Norman II; also notable is that he’s Jonathan Bepler’s former teacher). Other musicians include Dr. Lonnie Smith, Lila Downs, Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), James Carter (in a brief, unexpected appearance that made my jaw hit the floor), Eugene and Herbert Perry, Belita Woods, and many more. Though, Barney wasn’t going for names alone — the three live performances which are spliced into each act feature local talent as well. I can personally attest to this, as a friend of mine, Dr. James Fusik, performed as part of Detroit’s KHU, as well as a number of other familiar faces of colleagues and former classmates. Also, I’d be remiss to not give special mention to Detroit-based vocalist Jennie Knaggs, who deftly performs a variety of styles throughout (both during the wake and in KHU).

Furthermore, it’s not just a matter of Bepler juxtaposing varying styles, but rather his ability to so fluently filter them through his own voice and to serve the story. For example, Act I’s REN features a drum & bugle corps as well as a mariachi band with vocalist. Similar to the early wake music, the ensembles mostly begin stylistically traditionally, but eventually the brass are playing dense harmonic clusters and Lila Downs’s beautiful contralto sings atop dissonant bursts from the mariachi violins. The two ensembles are initially separated spatially and musically, the camera and audio going back and forth. Ultimately, in the culmination of REN (and Act I), they find themselves performing together in the same space while Khepera, in a ceremoniously profane fashion (isn’t it all?), prepares the automotive spirit of Norman for death/rebirth.

Of course, the score isn’t just a collection of similarly “Bepler-ed” styles. The composer also demonstrates his ability to tackle various musics head-on. For example, in the wake’s latter half of Act I, the young Hathfertiti sings a truly charming and catchy folk-pop ballad for Norman I (to the guests who can’t see Norman I, and to Norman I himself). It’s a fully realized song amidst the overall work, abruptly cut off at the end by a melismatic outburst from an angered Set. The same can be said for the more straightforward classical writing for Set’s passages, particularly in Act II’s KHU. Heard out of context, one may assume that it’s just another excerpt of contemporary American opera.

The voice as an instrument and atmospheric sound device is really highlighted, particularly in the wake scenes and in KHU, much more so than I had anticipated. It was a pleasant surprise. The aforementioned La Barbara and Knaggs as well as powerhouses Phil Minton and Sidsel Endresen really shine in this regard, as well as the wake’s chorus of Kjersti Kveli, Gelsey Bell, and Megan Schubert. A number of the sounds border on inhuman, particularly from Minton, but their conviction, virtuosity, and gravitas belie any absurdity.

Related to the music, one rather common criticism overall (not just music) is that the film engages in tokenism throughout, such as with the use of the mariachi band or with Act III’s African-American step dance team. I didn’t really get that impression; nothing stood out as such to me. Frankly, those making such broad (and lazy) accusations need to dig deeper into the material. This is yet another common shortcoming. (*)

Take the step dance team as an example, as that’s one that is occasionally highlighted as tokenism. The ensemble appears as part of Norman II’s ascension ceremony (en route to rebirth as Norman III) in Act III. Norman II is portrayed by Milford Graves, whose every scene from rebirth to death fittingly incorporates rhythm in one way or another (sometimes free, other times not). In a final celebration of rhythm, is a step dance team not out of the realm of aesthetic possibility? Until this point, Graves had been playing rhythms and music mostly himself (with found objects, his body and voice, and drums alike), so how is this group not appropriate for joining him in a rhythmic/percussive chorus? Similar criticisms have been levied against the Native American Indian chorus that appears in Act III (and musically opens the film’s trailer). However, it’s worth noting that Norman III is played by the 95-year-old Chief Dave Beautiful Bald Eagle. So wouldn’t that be appropriate also?

Taken together, the exhibition, the film, and its sources are a staggering gesamtkunstwerk. Each may be appreciated differently and separately, of course, and it’s certainly a calorie-burner that, arguably, requires some studying. But if you’re willing to put forth the time and the effort, the payoff makes it more than worthwhile. Personally, I imagine there’ll be more for me to stew over once I finish Ancient Evenings and contemplate the film even more. In fact, having sat and digested it for a while, I’d like a second viewing and listening just to help make more sense of the visual minutiae and to hear Bepler’s amazing score another time. River of Fundament, much like its namesake, is something you enter at your own risk, but you may come out the other side better for it.

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*I initially did have a question about Horus and Set’s respective pre-fight entourages in Act III. Many thanks to Chris Newell, who performed with Mystic River in River, for clarifying. He pointed out that those characters are Mardi Gras Indians, whose “composite ethnicity” is a nice analogue for the metals and characters. After that, nothing stood out to me as racial, ethnic, or gender tokenism. I’m grateful for the clarification — both to set the record straight and also to allay my sole potential concern with the work.