NEW YORK, NY, JANUARY 09, 2002 -- Palm Pictures today announced that it has acquired the North American and UK rights to Matthew Barney's CREMASTER CYCLE, which includes all five films of this landmark project. The Company plans a spring theatrical release of CREMASTER 3, the last film in the cycle, followed by a tour of all five films in the CREMASTER CYCLE.

CREMASTER 3 will be the first project distributed by Palm Pictures' new Arthouse Films label and will be screened as a part of the Frontier Program at this year's Sundance Film Festival. The deal was negotiated by David Koh, Head of Acquisitions & Production for Palm Pictures along with Arthouse Films' General Manager Jose Martinez, Jr., and Palm Pictures' acquisitions executive Richard Brown. The Creative Artists Agency (CAA) represented artist and director Matthew Barney, and producer Barbara Gladstone of the Barbara Gladstone Gallery in the deal.

Matthew Barney has been applauded as "ultimately the most important American artist of his generation" by The New York Times Magazine and his CREMASTER CYCLE has taken on legendary status. CREMASTER 3 was hailed by Stephen Holden of The New York Times as "A major work that exudes the fizz of a Busby Berkeley musical and the visceral excitement of sports extravaganza."

Eight years in the making, Barney's CREMASTER CYCLE includes such diverse personalities as Norman Mailer, Ursula Andress, Richard Serra and Aimee Mullins, as well as Barney himself. Chris Blackwell, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Palm Pictures, stated: "THE CREMASTER CYCLE will mark the inaugural release of our fine arts label, Arthouse Films, and I couldn't imagine a better project to launch it with than Matthew Barney's. We want to be known in the US and the UK as the label of choice for visual artists who are pushing the boundaries and forging new ground and this film certainly conveys that message."

David Koh, Head of Acquisitions & Production for Palm Pictures, commented: "We are extremely honored to release Matthew Barney's CREMASTER CYCLE and we look forward to our collaboration with the artist and Barbara Gladstone on the release. We are first and foremost fans of this important work. We plan a theatrical release of CREMASTER 3 (the last film in the cycle), followed by a touring cycle of all five CREMASTER films. We are also working on a special DVD with Matthew, which will include material not available theatrically and special behind the scenes footage."

Matthew Barney, Writer, Director, Producer of CREMASTER 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, said: "I'm pleased that Palm Pictures has joined us in completing the final stage of THE CREMASTER CYCLE by theatrically distributing the films to a broader audience. Palm Pictures is known for delivering innovative and thoughtful visual projects to mainstream audiences and they are the perfect partner for us in this endeavor." Barbara Gladstone, Producer of THE CREMASTER CYCLE, stated: "We're very excited that THE CREMASTER CYCLE is able to make the cross-over from its original art context to the general film audience. Those who have already seen this body of work have been taken with it and we are confident that the response from the wider movie-going audience will be just as powerful."

Matthew Barney's body of work and THE CREMASTER CYCLE will also be the subject of a much-anticipated retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum (New York City) opening in late February 2003. The exhibition will include the entire five-part narrative film project accompanied by related sculptures, photographs, and drawings. The Guggenheim exhibition brings together elements from the series for the first time, revealing the fundamental relationship between sculpture and the moving image in Barney's work.

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