DRAWING RESTRAINT 9

When Bjork became romantically involved with art-world darling Matthew Barney, the universe seemed to be uniting two of the most idiosyncratic artistic temperaments of the 21st century. The first major artistic product of this union, Drawing Restraint 9, music composed by Bjork for Barney's film of the same name, finds their sensibilities eerily complementary. Barney's previous films, the megaton, five-part Cremaster Cycle, astounded audiences with a personal mythology inspired by the biological process of prenatal sexual differentiation, touching themes as unsettlingly diverse as speed metal, auto racing, Freemasonry, and Harry Houdini. Barney, a former model and football player, has always been interested in expressions of physical strain and release. This coincides quite nicely with the work Bjork has produced lately, namely her album Medulla, which was composed entirely of human voices--singing, coughing, grunting, and beatboxing. The intersection of these two artistic geniuses comes at precisely the right time, when Bjork has cast off the last vestiges of her dance-floor self. To understand how remarkable a transformation this is, one might try to imagine what it would have been like if Donna Summers had turned into Yoko Ono.