Matthew Barney.

Matthew Barney is an artist from America. He typically works in sculpture, photography, drawing and film.

In 1994, Barney started an art project called the "Cremaster Cycle". It consists of 5 feature-length films and also accompanying photographs, sculptures, drawings and books. It is Barney's best known work.

The project took 8 years from inception to completion and culminated in a huge museum exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The exhibition also traveled to the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and the Musee d'Art in Paris.

The Cremaster Cycle was described by Nancy Spector from the Guggenheim as "a self-enclosed aesthetic system". The original concept point is the cremaster muscle, which raises and lowers the male testes in response to temperature change.

The whole projects is full of anatomical implications to the position of the reproductive organs at the time of differentiation (the fetus because either one gender or another).

The Cycle repeatedly explores the moments during early sexual development when the outcome of how the child will turn out is unknown.

Some people consider the project a major work of art, even comparing it with Dali and Bunuel's "Un Chien Andalou", whilst others call the Cycle self-indulgent, vacant and tedious.