DRAWING RESTRAINT 9

Matthew Barney, whose Cremaster film series was the cover story in the Spring 2003 issue of Filmmaker, has completed a new feature with a soundtrack composed by his wife, Bjork. The 150-minute-long film, Drawing Restraint 9 premieres this week in the Horizons section of 62nd Venice International Film Festival; it will also screen at the forthcoming Toronto International Film Festival.

According to the Web site of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, which recently concluded a retrospective of Barney’s Drawing Restraint series — a project he has worked on continuously since 1987 — Drawing Restraint 9 “is an abstract fairy tale carried by striking visuals and music (much like opera), which draws its inspiration from Japanese cultural tradition, the history of petroleum-based energy, and the evolution of the whale. Framed within the Japanese whaling tradition, the story draws an elliptical connection between prehistoric fossil fuel, the prehistoric land mammal as a pre- condition for the modern whale, whale oil as a primary energy source, and the contemporary condition of the diesel fueled factory ship.”

Bjork’s Web site immodestly describes Drawing Restraint 9 as “the first creative collaboration of two of the most protean, dynamic forces in music and fine art.”

“[Barney's] latest work, the two-hour-and-fifteen-minute magnum opus Drawing Restraint 9, was shot in Nagasaki Bay on board the Japanese whaling ship Nisshin Maru.

“Its core idea is the relationship between self-imposed resistance and creativity, a theme it symbolically tracks through the construction and transformation of a vast sculpture of liquid vaseline, called ‘The Field,’ which is molded, poured, bisected and reformed on the deck of the ship over the course of the film.

“Barriers hold form in place, and when they are removed, the film tracks the descent of form into states of sensual surrender and formal atrophy; this shift in the physical state of the sculpture is symbolically mirrored through the narrative of The Guests, two occidental visitors to the ship played in the film by Matthew Barney and Bjork, who we first see taken on board, groomed, bathed and dressed in mammal fur costumes based upon traditional Shinto marriage costumes.

“They take part in a tea ceremony in which, in the film’s only moment of spoken dialogue, they are informed about the history of the vessel, and then, as an increasingly powerful lightning storm breaks out overhead, the tatami mat room they occupy floods with liquid vaseline, a fluid which we sense has emanated from The Field sculpture itself.

“In a harrowing liebestod which is the climax and centerpiece of the film, the Guests, locked in an embrace and breathing through blowhole-like orifices on the back of their necks, take out flensing knives and cut away each other’s feet and thighs. The remains of their lower body are revealed to contain traces of whale tails at an early stage of development, suggesting rebirth, physical transformation, and the possibility of new forms.

“Having reached a state of maximum disintegration, the sculpture of The Field
is then reorganized and the ship emerges from the storm, sailing through a field of icebergs towards the open southern ocean. In the last shot, two whales can be seen swimming behind the ship, headed for Antarctica.”

Barney’s Drawing Restraint works are inspired by the idea that resistance makes muscles larger and stronger due to hypertrophy. ” ‘The Drawing Restraint project proposes resistance as a prerequisite for development and a vehicle for creativity,’ said Barney. In Drawing Restraint 1 and 2 (pictured right), Barney drew running up an incline while strapped with an elastic band. In Drawing Restraint 3, he lifted a barbell cast in petroleum wax and petroleum jelly. Drawing Restraint 7 is a three multi-channel video installation. In a limousine entering Manhattan, a hairless satyr chases his tail in the front seat, while in the back seat, two developed satyrs ‘one ram and one ewe’ wrestle. Using the tip of the ram’s horn the ewe attempts to draw a ram horn in the condensation on the sunroof.”

“Drawing Restraint 8 is composed of eight elegant transparent vitrines with cabriole legs. Inside the vitrines, drawings are framed and exhibited with a nylon fiber substance, which looks like mold, growing between the frames. As Barney explains, ‘In “Drawing Restraint 8 stored energy is sacrificed for eroticism and the body begins to atrophy.’ The theme of eroticism continues on to “Drawing Restraint 9.”