Matthew Barney's "Cremaster 4" is an excellent example of what can be achieved in the area of video art. "Cremaster 4" contains no verbal dialogue, but exists purely in the visual (with audio accompaniment). While not made with the budget and means of perhaps Barney's later "Cremaster 3," "Cremaster 4" is a successful enveiling of various processes that reference issues of gender and masculinity, sports, and Barney's own mythology/ iconography. I believe what makes Barney's work so significant is his dealing with issues from contemporary American culture that artists previously either rejected or deemed unworthy as subject material. While the Cremaster cycle of movies most directly deals with masculinity (the cremaster is found in the scrotum and is the muscle which is responsible for raising and lowering the testicles), Barney also manages to weave in his own commentary on sports (he played football at Yale), video games (see the Guggenheim sequence in "Cremaster 3"; it's self-explanatory), and gender ambiguity. Barney has a keen eye for striking images. The music provided by Jonathan Bepler suits Barney's films very well. If you like evocative images, cryptic sequences of events, and can tolerate the occasionally disturbing, I highly recommend "Cremaster 4."
Review of Cremaster 4
Cremaster 4
(1995)
a great non-narrative art film dealing with gender, sports, and the Isle of Man
11 December 2002