Matthew Barney - Contemporary Art Part I New York Thursday, May 14, 2009 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Barbara Gladstone Gallery, NewYork; Private collection, New York

  • Exhibited


    NewYork, Nassau County Museum of Art, Eye Candy, August 15 – October 31, 2004 (another example exhibited)

  • Literature


    M. Barney, Cremaster 5, New York, 1997, n.p. (detail illustrated); N. Spector, The Cremaster Cycle, New York, 2002, p. 513

  • Catalogue Essay


    Cremaster 5: The Queen’s Menagerie, 1997 depicts the fleet of Jacobin pigeons symbolic for the tragic love story of the Cremaster cycle. Matthew Barney’s Cremaster series of films metaphorically chronicles the biological development of the human life cycle. Cremaster 5, realized as a lyric opera, is set in late-nineteenthcentury Budapest.The film presents the climax of the complete Cremaster Cycle.The Queen of Chains of Matthew Barney’s Cremaster 5 is served by three men: her Diva, Musician, and Giant. The present lot, Cremaster 5: The Queen’s Menagerie is a visually elegant and pleasing composition of the Queen’s Jacobin pigeons and flowers. Ultimately, the Jacobin pigeons fail to save the Queen and her lover, the Giant, from tragedy.The Cremaster cycle draws no concrete conclusions; the viewer is left to decide whether Barney presents a final death or a rebirth and return to Cremaster 1.

26

Cremaster 5: The Queen’s Menagerie

1997

C-print in artist’s acrylic frame.

52 3/4 x 42 1/4 in. (134 x 107.3 cm).

Signed and dated “Matthew Barney ‘97” on the reverse.This work is from an edition of six plus one artist’s proof.

Estimate
$80,000 - 120,000 

Sold for $98,500

Contemporary Art Part I

14 May 2009, 7pm
New York