#cremaster cycle

If you are new to Barney’s work, his long-term projects like "Cremaster" have sculptural and architectural aspects. Some sculptures could be construed as props and parts of a set for performance. In a gallery setting they are firmly sculpture. A film of the performance becomes its own highly edited and crafted artifact, which is then used in the spaces that exhibit the objects. 

How do framed photographs fit into this system? As with the films, they are artifacts of the performance, a Barney exhibit might have the sculpture (often quite large) in the center of a gallery space, with the framed photographs on the walls, in the same way a video monitor might be on a wall with the dangling headphones.

Barney cites "Cremaster" as beginning in 1994, but this framed football magazine is from 1991, with what became the Cremaster logo applied in the center. This example suggests these framed photographs exist as collectables with some connection to how a sports or music fan collects still images of action, or a cinema fan would collect a production still.

Along with vaseline or beeswax, self-lubricating plastic as used in sculpture or framed photographs can be considered one of Barney's core materials. Was it selected due to the fact it resembles beeswax? Here's another 1991 example, with a black and white silver print.

The "Cremaster"-era prints themselves are exquisitely lit and printed, mostly color, many seem to be photographed by Michael James O’Brien, though I don't recall ever seeing his name on a museum or gallery label. The photographer is like the fabricator of the frame, a craftsperson Barney hires to execute the object. My recollection is they are printed luxuriously matte, which works well with the creamy frames. The "Cremaster 3" prints are of larger dimensions that became popular at the fin de siècle with Gursky, or more relevant to Barney as his own lead actor, the portraits of Rineke Dijkstra. These are titled film stills, the convention of the Cremaster stills seems to be “movie : subject.” (e.g. Cremaster I: Orchidella).

My memory of the framed Cremaster photographs is that they were of somewhat uniform size and look: a creamy beeswax plastic, in line with the other sculpture you might see in his exhibits, no sharp edges, but not particularly different from other plastics you might encounter in our modern wonderland of PFAS.  When I first read "self-lubricating frame," I assumed it was partially a joke, a reference to petroleum jelly/ vaseline, one of Barney’s other preferred materials. Or perhaps lubricated condoms.

Looking online at the auction houses, it appears my memory was way off, there were many variations in size, shape and even color. Ireland is a core part of the "Cremaster" mythology, and this "Cremaster 4" print is in delightful Shamrock Shake green.

After that screening of "Cremaster 3," I went on the typical bender of reading old blog posts and writings on the topic. There’s a 2004 doc streaming on Kanopy (the library video app, excellent for art documentaries), where the NYT art critic Michael Kimmelman walks through the Guggenheim Cremaster exhibit with Barney answering questions, explaining references, personal and mythical, cutting to scenes from the relevant films. About nine minutes into the doc, my question is answered. Barney explains about a sculpture they are looking at: “[it's] high density polyethylene, from the same family as Teflon is from, has a resistance to friction. And in that way it’s a self-lubricating plastic, in that it generates its own lubrication.” 

OK! So "self-lubricating" is a description for a class of industrial plastic products, which Barney has fabricated his frames of and adopted the phrase. "Self-lubricating plastic frame" is more accurate if more mundane sounding. There's no liquid aspect to it, but if we were able to rub at it, in a repetitive fashion, could we perhaps notice it was different? It's a specific material - not a condom joke, or even like using the word "giclée" to gussy up "ink jet" print.

This material is described as:

solid lubricants are embedded as microscopic particles in millions of tiny chambers in the fiber-reinforced material. From these chambers, the plastic bushings release tiny amounts of solid lubricant during movement.

Another description of how it works once molded into an industrial form:

The bearing achieves this by transferring microscopic amounts of material to the mating surface, creating a film that lubricates and reduces friction over the entire length of the rail or shaft. 

When you read this and see some of the examples of how it's used in actual products (Linear Bearing for 8mm rod pictured above), this wasn't selected by Barney just because it resembles beeswax, but because conceptually it's a classic Barney material. A plastic, honeycombed with microscopic bits of lubricant! There's an added tension looking at these objects, knowing the material is designed for friction, but will likely never experience it. After the organic forms are molded, the films are shot, the stills are taken, the photographs mounted in the frame, they will only ever be handled by people wearing white gloves.