The Order

A screening of international artist Matthew Barney’s “The Order” was recently presented in the Hoag Hall art gallery.

Presented by Gabe Wolf and Katie Mitchell, art majors, the exhibit consisted of the final film in Barney’s “Cremaster” series, “Cremaster 3.”

The “Cremaster” series is a set of five non-chronologically ordered films artistically depicting sexual symbolism, with familiar elements including molten Vaseline and Masonic imagery.

Barney’s thoughts on creation served as his inspiration for the films.

“Exploring, as he called it, “the life cycle of an idea,” Barney merged his interest in a concept’s development through an unresolved artwork with his fascination with the human embryo’s moment of physiological limbo before the gonads either ascend or descend to create a female or male child,” Lucia Bozzola states in her biography of the artist on the New York Times Web site. http://movies.nytimes.com/person/237238/Matthew-Barney/biography

“The Order” begins with five nearly nude women in pearl thongs and swimming caps bathing in a bubble bath, each being an introduction to the five degree’s that The Apprentice, the oddly dressed main character of the film, must work through to be initiated into the Masonic Order.

The five degree’s are a depiction of Barney’s other films, re-worked into obstacles placed on five different levels of the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

The first degree features the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls, a troop of female dancers dressed as little lambs. The inspiring rockettes initiate the apprentice.

Next, the second degree features the bands “Agnostic Front” and “Murphy’s Law” and a large throng of moshing people trying to distract The Apprentice from building the perfect cube.

Renowned actress and Paralympic track athlete Aimee Mullins is the female representation and rival of The Apprentice, lending her unique beauty to the Third Degree with crystal prosthetic legs.

The fourth degree is a puzzle for The Apprentice in the form of a giant disassembled bag pipe that must be assembled using the rules of the Highland games caber toss.

Throughout the film, Richard Serra, a post-minimalist artist who specialized in molted lead sculptures, has been throwing molten Vaseline against a paraffin wall, which has been dripping down the five layers of the Guggenheim museum.

The Vaseline serves as a time piece to add a sense of urgency to the ordeal. If The Apprentice does not complete the five degree’s before the molten Vaseline reaches the dancing girls of the first degree, then he will not pass the initiation.

Steeped in symbolism and odd imagery, “The Order” was a look into avant-garde film making.

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