Forget John and Yoko. Forget Nick and Jessica (until their Christmas variety show, at least). For the world’s “coolest” artistic couple, look no further than the swan-princess and the man who turns Goodyear blimps in a football field into a critique of masculinity: Björk and Matthew Barney.

I’m not an art student. I’m not even a music student. And while I am an English major, the fact that I edit the Sports section of this fine publication may make you groan at the implied validity of anything I say in this piece. If that’s the case, I’ll apologize in advance. For those of you willing to read on, perhaps you’ll share in my delight that such a couple exists. And they’ve reproduced!

For those unfamiliar with either Björk or Barney:

Björk was born in Iceland in 1965, and her music career began at a young age when she recorded covers of pop songs, Beatles tracks among them. After working with a number of bands, she recorded her first solo album in 1990. She first reached a wide audience with Debut in 1993. She later turned her attention to cinema, starring and singing in Lars von Trier’s 2000 film Dancer in the Dark. Her 2001 album Vespertine is largely about her love for her then-new husband, Matthew Barney.

While she may be more of an icon for her fashion than her music, her musical influence far outweighs her public idiosyncrasies. A member of the ’80s pop-rock band The Sugarcubes, Björk gained recognition because of her keening and canty vocal style but first gained widespread fame with her solo work. Björk can be credited with helping bring the club music scene of the late ’80s and early ’90s into the mainstream across Europe and in urban America. Björk’s landscaped beats and far-reaching voice provide the right foundation to convey her confessional lyrics, something of an oddity in electronic music. Björk remains one of the most creative personas in pop music and culture.

Barney was born in 1967 and grew up in Idaho, visiting New York City occasionally where he was introduced to the art world. He played football at Yale, graduated in 1989 and it is rumored that he modeled for J. Crew at one point. He soon turned his attention to art and achieved significant recognition for early exhibits where he combined sculptural installations with videos of himself performing various physical activities, including climbing across his own exhibit nude. He is most widely known for work on his epic series of five Cremaster films.

As Björk’s music is likely more familiar to readers than Barney’s work, perhaps an explanation of his Cremaster films will be useful to justify my assertion of his and his wife’s “coolness.” The title of the series of films refers to the muscle that lowers and raises the testicles in response to certain stimuli (fear, temperature, stimulation) and contributes to the natural differentiation of the reproductive system.

The five films chronicle the stages of this differentiation, but Barney chose to compose the films out of sequence. The first, Cremaster 4, was released in 1994. In the Cremaster Cycle, Barney chronicles this sexual development through a heavy use of symbols, metaphors and sexual imagery, drawing these from biology, mythology, biography (Harry Houdini and Garry Gilmore feature prominently in multiple films) and geology.

If this synopsis seems incomprehensible, don’t be alarmed. The films themselves are at times seemingly unintelligible. Barney’s mastery of cinematographic techniques heightens his layered, frequently elusive themes and shows the unique opportunities film allows as an art form. Without attempting to decipher and explain Barney’s themes, experiencing the films, however elusive Barney’s “messages” may be, is a worthwhile endeavor, as it is an artistic experience unlikely to be paralleled elsewhere.

For aspiring artists and lay-folk alike, Barney and Björk should be viewed as role-models. They epitomize the oft-ignored motto: “Seek not an econ major to couple with.” As Jesse Sawyer ’07 eloquently exclaimed, “I wish they were my parents.” Macalester students should follow their example. Even if that doesn’t involve Ursula Andress wearing glass orbs resembling differentiated genitalia on her head, or “modern things, like cars and such […] waiting in a mountain for the right moment.”