It's the Ahts: Do you like the Ahts? I like a little subversion of the subversion from time to time, which is why the New Criterion appeals to me. It's nice to read art-literate folks who aren't buying the snake-oil show that the so-called art world has become. Now, author and critic Terry Teachout has started his own arts blog, and he's definitely not drinking the kool-aid, as his wry post on Matthew Barney indicates. I won't bother to see Barney's multimedia Cremaster Cycle exhibit (if you have the time and you want to have a snicker, go see it at the Guggenheim), though the unintended hilarity of the fawning PBS special dedicated to the show's delights was awful fun. I honestly could not pull myself away from the television as the artist himself explained the mysteries of Cremaster. His comments were, of course, pure drivel, but almost self-parody-level drivel. I'd love for Barney to reveal himself as the Alan Sokal of the arts, to fess up to Cremaster being a lark, a put-on, and a joke at the expense of people who swoon over anyone getting one of Peggy's dimes.

More: Just for ducks, here's a bit of the text from the Guggenheim site:

Matthew Barney's epic Cremaster cycle (1994–2002) is a self-enclosed aesthetic system consisting of five feature-length films that explore processes of creation. The cycle unfolds not just cinematically, but also through the photographs, drawings, sculptures, and installations the artist produces in conjunction with each episode. Its conceptual departure point is the male cremaster muscle, which controls testicular contractions in response to external stimuli. The project is rife with anatomical allusions to the position of the reproductive organs during the embryonic process of sexual differentiation: Cremaster 1 represents the most "ascended" or undifferentiated state, Cremaster 5 the most "descended" or differentiated.

Deep, eh? I'd been meaning to write about this since I saw the PBS show, but it took Teachout to remind me.