While mainstream America's attention has been focused on TomKat's recent offspring and Brangelina's pending progeny, we joined San Francisco's arthouse hipster crowd at the Kabuki late Wednesday night for the local unveiling of , the creative brainchild of Matthew "most important American artist of his generation" Barney and the inimitable Björk. It was screened as part of the SF International Film Festival in collaboration with SFMoMA, which mounts a major solo exhibition of Barney's work on June 23.
We were quite excited about the event, not just because we're Björkophiles and longtime Barney followers, but because it's an exceptionally well-suited creative pairing: two artists who both think unflinchingly about sexuality, who are meticulous in their opulent choreographing of sight/sound, whose consciousnesses seem to be completely unaware of any boundary separating reality and mythology, and who are real-life lovers playing out the consummation of a relationship.
A full house settled into the theater at 11:30PM to listen to Matthew Barney introduce the film, which runs just under 2 1/2 hours. After the lights came back on around 2:10AM, we overheard one attendee say, "Yo, wake up. That was some f***ed-up s***."
More about whale intestines, clowns, cannibalism, and Matthew Barney's penis, as well as some viewing tips, in the second part of this post.
Friend of SFist M. C-, contributing.
Drawing Restraint 9