Here’s the scoop on the “top secret” Matthew Barney/Elizabeth Peyton “Blood of Two” project I blogged about on Monday. There are a couple of pics of the event, which featured local Hydra fishermen and other laborers as part of the performance, in the report from the NYT’s “The Moment” blog. A few choice excerpts:

“The evening before Monday’s sunrise arrival and unveiling of “Blood of Two,” the collaboration between Matthew Barney and Elizabeth Peyton, and the inauguration of the Slaughterhouse, the Greek billionaire and art collector Dakis Joannou hosted an exclusive dinner for the Barney and Peyton on the island of Hydra in Greece.

Held in an open air restaurant, where casual glamour and sophisticated simplicity were the order of the evening, the dinner drew the gallerists Jeffrey Deitch, Emmanuel Perrotin and Javier Peres; the artists Maurizio Catelan, Rirkrit Tiravanija and David Byrne; and David Teiger, a MoMa trustee, and long time collector, who entertained the audience with a speech dedicated to Joannou. The notable attendees feasted on mutton head….

At dawn, the crowd waited patiently on a winding cliffside road, where little by little the local psaras (fishermen) pulled out of the water an expected glass sarcophagus containing mysterious artifacts and artworks. The long pace of the unloading echoed the calm, focused and attentively observant crowd who were clearly intended to be part of the artwork, part of an imaginary film Matthew Barney unfolded in front of our eyes.

When was the last time you heard the phrase “feasted on mutton head”? Also love the “calm, focused and attentively observant crowd” line too. At least they weren’t all Tweeting, right? Oh, and the dramatic conclusion to the report is tops:

“In a climatic moment, flooding water unveiled beautiful small-format graphite drawings by Elizabeth Peyton, which mixed elements of Symbolist imagery and nautical fantasies. The relieved crowd then walked its way toward the port, the early morning sun soothing their shock and awe.”

“Soothing their shock and awe”?? Honestly, who writes this stuff?

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Claudine Isé

Claudine Isé has worked in the field of contemporary art as a writer and curator for the past decade, and currently serves as the Editor of the Art21 Blog. Claudine regularly writes for Artforum.com and Chicago magazine, and has also worked as an art critic for the Los Angeles Times. Before moving to Chicago in 2008, she worked at the Wexner Center in Columbus, OH as associate curator of exhibitions, and at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles as assistant curator of contemporary art, where she curated a number of Hammer Projects. She has Ph.D. in Film, Literature and Culture from the University of Southern California.

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