Matthew Barney, New People's Cinema Club, and Unsound New York
present a special screening in New York City:
River of Fundament at the Masonic Hall
On November 14, 2026 New People’s Cinema Club and Unsound New York will host a screening of Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler’s 2014 film, River of Fundament, in an eight-hour cinematic experience at the Masonic Hall of New York (71 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010). The screening marks a rare presentation of River of Fundament in New York, following its world premiere at BAM in 2014.
Presented in three acts, River of Fundament will unfold over the course of the evening with a live music intervention by Jonathan Bepler and musicians from the film's cast. Intermissions will follow each act allowing the audience to move throughout the adjoining spaces of the Masonic Hall’s largest ritual meeting space, the Grand Lodge of the Free & Accepted Masons of New York, a congregation founded in 1782. Food and libations will be offered, extending the experience beyond the screening itself into a ceremonious gathering in this historic setting.
Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler, River of Fundament, 2014. Production Still; © Matthew Barney. Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone. Photo: David Regen
Barney’s epic reimagines Norman Mailer’s novel Ancient Evenings as a journey through death and rebirth, set in pharaonic Egypt. The film follows a Mailer-inspired character across three reincarnations, each enacted by the ritual destruction of an American automobile. The project was conceived as a nontraditional opera with a series of one-time-only live performances set against the industrial landscapes of Los Angeles’s freeways and Detroit and New York City’s rivers, over a five-year period. Blending live performance, sculptural elements, and breathtaking cinematography, River of Fundament creates a unique experience where a scatological and debauched ancient Egyptian mythology meets that of a hedonistic American culture.
Co-presented by New People’s Cinema Club, a group that redefines cinematic experiences by staging films and video art in extraordinary venues, and Unsound, a longstanding experimental music and sound festival, the collaboration will meet at the intersection of the contemporary art, film, and music worlds. Staged in the headquarters of the Grand Lodge of the Free and Accepted Masons of New York, the context mirrors the artist’s fascination with ritual, mythology, and systems of power. On November 14th, Barney’s work will transform the Lodge’s secret-laden, opulent meeting space into another node in River of Fundament’s journey of the soul.
River of Fundament, 2014. Production Still; © Matthew Barney. Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone. Photo: Hugo Glendinning
In honor of this screening event, Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler will be in conversation the following day with Andy Battaglia, an editor at ARTnews and Art in America, to discuss their decades-long collaboration and the generative role that music and performance played in the creation of River of Fundament. The conversation—on Sunday, November 15th, at 2:00 at Public Records in Brooklyn—is co-presented by Unsound New York, New People’s Cinema Club, and Durations Festival, and is free for all River of Fundament at the Masonic Hall and Durations Festival ticket holders on a first-come, first-served basis (capacity is limited, please arrive early to secure entry).
River of Fundament was produced by Matthew Barney and the Laurenz Foundation. The live performance at the Masonic Hall of New York is supported by the Laurenz Foundation (Schaulager Basel). The event is supported by NYC-based Misguided Spirits, who will serve drinks throughout the evening.