I’ve always thought of the project as a sort of sexually driven digestive system, that it was a consumer and a producer of matter. And it is desire driven, rather than driven by hunger or anything like that.

Meaning of the quote

The artist is saying that his project or artwork is like a living, sexual system that takes in and creates new things. It is driven by desire, not just basic needs like hunger. The project is an active, creative force that transforms matter in a way that is connected to sexual or intimate feelings and experiences.

About Matthew Barney

Matthew Barney is an acclaimed American artist who explores themes of geography, biology, and mythology through his groundbreaking sculptures, films, and drawings. He is best known for his acclaimed Cremaster Cycle, a series of experimental films that showcase his unique artistic vision.

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More quotes from Matthew Barney

A lot of these angles are really about trying to mimic broadcast sports angles in order to anchor the scene, to sort of normalize it before it becomes abstracted.

Matthew Barney

American sculptor and filmmaker

A lot of my work has to do with not allowing my characters to have an ego in a way that the stomach doesn’t have an ego when it’s wanting to throw up. It just does it.

Matthew Barney

American sculptor and filmmaker

Jackass: The Movie is great. I think it’s in the tradition of physical comedy, which I’m really interested in. Its relationship to gravity, and how gravity acts on the body.

Matthew Barney

American sculptor and filmmaker

An interesting thing happened in 1989, right as I was graduating: the stock market crashed and really changed the landscape of the art world in New York. It made the kind of work I was doing interesting to galleries that wouldn’t have normally been interested in it.

Matthew Barney

American sculptor and filmmaker

I’ve always thought of the project as a sort of sexually driven digestive system, that it was a consumer and a producer of matter. And it is desire driven, rather than driven by hunger or anything like that.

Matthew Barney

American sculptor and filmmaker

I have a need to make these sorts of connections literal sometimes, and a vehicle often helps to do that. I have a relationship to car culture. It isn’t really about loving cars. It’s sort of about needing them.

Matthew Barney

American sculptor and filmmaker

Somebody like Mailer brings to that role everything that he stands for. The types of characters that I gravitate towards, the types of icons, tend to have a heavy physicality in that way.

Matthew Barney

American sculptor and filmmaker