Bored with the usual cinema fare? Look no further. L’Enfant (or I suppose now l’adolescent or l’adulte depending on your feelings towards said provocateur) terrible Matthew Barney returns to the cinema fray with his operatic River of Fundament, a collaboration between him, several powerhouse thespians, Gaspard Noé, Jonathan Bepler, and…Norman Mailer?! Premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on February 12, the 6-hour art film marathon is a loose adaptation of Mailer’s late tract on atavism Ancient Evenings, and features the eXXXagerations–is that even possible–of usual Barney motifs–warped Americana, scatology, nudity, sexual outrages, and a preoccupation with the occult and arcane, ornamented impeccably with the artist’s sculptures and installations. The response is as predictable, a division between numbed awe and …really?, the centralists sounding the more measured recommendation that Barney’s should leave films alone and stick with still art.
Whatever; nowadays when the specter of shock art sets off warnings of not strange-enough-so-stranger danger around every corner, perhaps an artist that continues to ignite sincere controversy is worth something–not just a pile of shit.
