not

Cremaster is a medical name for the muscles that raise and lower the testicles,
depending on the temperature.

We have undescended testicles (semennik), which, in the course of fetal (plod) growth,
eventually drop, but not before the fetus swims in a presumably blissful sea
of gender ambivalence.

We have Celtic legends and chorines and tests of physical strength (mostly for Mr. Barney
himself, as his own star)

and Harry Houdini and Gary Gilmore and Mormon and Masonic signs and rituals.

letting the imagery captivate you on its own, preverbal terms

4
the tap-dancing man-beast and androgynous “Faeries” and motorcycle racers with what
Ms. Spector calls “gelatinous gonadal forms” oozing from their pockets in “4”
—
In “Cremaster 4,” the earlier of the two, the artist plays a redheaded satyr
in a white suit who is slavishly attended by three androgynous “faeries” as he
tap-dances around a hole at the end of a pier, eventually slipping through it
into the water. From under the sea, he makes his way back to the land through
a white viscous tunnel made of a mysterious substance that suggests paste,
sperm and blubbery animal innards.
–
The scenes of his descent and re-emergence are intercut with a contest on the
Isle of Man between two racing-car teams speeding in opposite directions around
the island. When one of the cars stops for a tire change, the faeries futilely
attempt to replace an ordinary tire with one equipped with testicles. The final
image is an enigmatic logo viewed through a pair of spread legs while bagpipes
play on the soundtrack.
—
“Cremaster 4” suggests sperm frantically competing to fertilize a female egg,

1
sleek (ulizana) elegance of the dirigible stewardesses in “1”
—
On each of two nearly identical Goodyear blimps, four female flight attendants
monitor a table whose centerpiece is a bunch of grapes (green on one
aircraft, red on the other) that surround a vaguely phallic sculpture.
Underneath each table a weirdly angelic woman surreptitiously pulls the grapes
through a hole in the table and arranges them into pretty formations.
–
Meanwhile, on the ground below, an elaborate ceremony unfolds across a football
field covered with bright blue Astroturf. As a bland beauty-pageant musical
theme is repeated over and over, a corps of smiling air hostesses attired in
double hoop skirts (designed by Isaac Mizrahi) and holding blue balloons repeat
the same formations arranged by the woman under the tables, in choreography
worthy of an Esther Williams extravaganza. At the end of the film, the woman
under the table magically appears on the field and skips across the Astroturf,
pulling the two blimps on ropes behind her.
—
the egg and its welcoming committee: the yang and yin of the biological equation

5
the Budapest Opera House and dappled Asian water sprites and the amazing image of
Mr. Barney’s descended testicles attached to ribbons borne by fluttering doves, from “5.”

2
the dazzling desert and ice landscapes and bizarre Gary Gilmore enactments (although
as an actor Norman Mailer is no Richard Serra) in “2”

3
the Houdini zombie and demolition derby, the racetrack of rotting horses,
the Chrysler Building and the Guggenheim itself, the dueling Celtic giants and
the extraordinary Aimee Mullins as the Cheetah Woman, all in “3”;
Richard Serra, playing Hirma Biff or the evil Architect in “3” as an Oedipal father figure

2005 TOP 10
1. Damien Hirst, artist, Uk
2. Larry Gagosian, dealer/ gallerist US
3. Francois Pinault, owner of Christie?s /collector, France
4. Sir Nicholas Serota, Tate director, Uk
5. Glenn D Lowry MoMA director, US
6. Eli Broad, collector/philanthropist, US-LA
7. Sam Keller, Art Basel director, Switzerland
8. Iwan Wirth, dealer/gallerist, Hayser and Wirth, Switzerland
9. Bruce Nauman, artist US
10. David Zwirner, dealer/gallerist, US

damien hirst
artist, born 65 in Bristol, 2 men I ge, father car salesman, school in Leeds, works for 2yrs at building sites, 89 art degree at Goldsmiths College London, worked in mortuary during studies, 88 curates student exhib Freeze in E London attended by Saatchi, Rosenthal and Serota, 92 shark at yBa exhib, 92 Saatchi offers him to fund whatever artwork he wants to make, regular Soho’s Groucho Club visitor, early 90s – 02 cocaine and alcohol addict, banned from Groucho, marries Californian Maia Norman (now 2 kids), 95 Turner Prize, 98 opens restaurant Pharmacy in Notting Hill, 98 records a World Cup tribute pop single Vandaloo with Fat Les (w/ actor Keith Allen and Blur bassist Alex James) and reaches #2 in charts, 98 publish autobiography "I Want To Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now", 00 100.000 people visits his show at Gagosian in 12 weeks and all the works are sold, since 00 spends most time at remote farmhouse in north Devon, 03 good friend Joe Strummer (ex bass of The Clash) dies, founds Strummerville charity to help young musicians, 03 after retrospective at Saatchi’s: "I’m not Charles Saatchi’s barrel-organ monkey … He only recognises art with his wallet … he believes he can affect art values with buying power, and he still believes he can do it.", intr in Christianity, 03 Pharmacy closes down, 04 in fire at Saatchi’s 17 Hirst’s artworks are destroyed, 04 new agent: Gagosian, 04 solds shark for $12mil to Steve Cohen who then donates it to MoMA (Serota tried to acquire it to Tate and also gov was asked to fund)
http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/H/hirst/

larry gagosian
art dealer and gallerist, aka GoGo, born in LA, opened largest private gallery in London 04, Gagosian Gallery *96 has 5 branches (2x Manhattan, 1x Beverly Hills, 2x London), ArtReview’s top art businessman since 04, in 03 US gov took lawsuit against him for taxes
http://www.gagosian.com/

francois pinault
born 37
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Pinault

nicholas serota
dir of Tate, curator, born 46, 7 cauac I ta, son of labour edu minister, studied economics, then history of art, 73 marries ballet dancer Angela Beveridge, 88- Tate Gallery director, 97 marries head of Tate’s info dept Teresa Gleadowe (affair since late 80s)
http://www.answers.com/topic/nicholas-serota

glenn d lowry
dir of MoMA in NYC, born 54 in NYC

eli broad
born 33, 8 ix II ge

sam keller
dir of Art Basel

(left)
iwan wirth

bruce nauman
born 41, 4 caban I sa

david zwirner

After 30 years into the ‘aftershock’ of modernism, then into necessary post-colonial reexamination of our cultural frames, Altermodern intends to define specific modernity according to context we live in – globalization + its economic/political/cultural conditions | pomo is coming to an end | Core of this new modernity is experience of wandering — in time/space/mediums | Multiculturism and identity are being overtaken by ‘creolization’, artists start from a “global state of culture” | Sticking to multiculturalist dogma jails the individuals into their ‘origins’ & ‘identities’ | I’m interested in artists who produce singular itineraries within different streams of knowledge, not ones who insist on ‘representing’ their cultures | I try to understand&explain what I see emerging | The Radicat insists on difference bwn appropriating and ‘formal collectivism’, and attributes a positive value to precariousness as cultural phenomenon. it is about the value of programming and DJing as methods
http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-opinion/conversations/2009-03-17/altermodern-a-conversation-with-nicolas-bourriaud/

Bourriaud: Artists are looking for a new modernity that would be based on translation: What matters today is to translate the cultural values of cultural groups and to connect them to the world network. This “reloading process” of modernism according to the twenty-first-century issues could be called altermodernism, a movement connected to the creolisation of cultures and the fight for autonomy, but also the possibility of producing singularities in a more and more standardized world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alter-Modernism