Cremaster 3

Matthew Barney’s experimental five-part series has become the toast of the museum crowd, while flying beneath the radar of the average moviegoer. You may have seen his name in the gossip columns, since he just had a child in September with Icelandic diva Bjork. (And you thought your mom and dad were weird.) Their couplehood echoes their complementary approaches to art; if you like Ms. Gudmunds-dottir’s unapologetic avant-garde take on club music, you might want to check out Barney’s visually explosive reconstructions of genre film, reminiscent of David Cronenberg by way of Busby Berkeley. As you can tell from the series’ title, named for a muscle in the, erm, male reproductive system, Barney’s chief preoccupation is masculinity. Previous segments have taken inspiration from Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song, spaghetti westerns, and Barney’s own experience as a football quarterback. Cremaster 3, the final and most elaborate of the quintet, explores creativity and male sexuality through rapidly shifting, dreamlike sequences, epitomized by a Masonic initiation rite involving buckets of liquid Vaseline, the Chrysler Building, and the hardcore punk band Agnostic Front. We’re just getting started, here: It’s also populated with disturbing, dreamlike mutants—a zombie of serial killer Gary Gilmore, a disabled athlete who chops potatoes with blades attached to her prosthetic legs, and so on. Rather than force an interpretation onto the material, just let the images wash over you, and let Barney’s subconscious filter into your own. Walker Art Center, (612) 375-7622, www. walkerart.org