Paul McCarthy
Biography: While still a student, Paul McCarthy threw himself out of a second floor window in a performance/action, emulating Yves Klein's legendary "Leap into the Void." McCarthy was an influential figure in the Southern California art and performance scene for decades before achieving international recognition. His performance work in the late 1970s explored areas of Dionysian and shamanistic initiation rituals, as well as the body and sexuality. The intensity of these performances, which often included the graphic depiction of taboo subjects, eventually led to his use of video and installation as primary media. Mining the depths of the family and childhood via kitsch and pop cultural detritus, the body and sexuality, and an often outrageous theatricality, McCarthy's works inhabit a violent landscape of dysfunction and trauma. In many of his works, he adopts a performance persona that appears crazed, witch-like, or infantile. McCarthy's works often involve liquids, from bodily fluids to paint; one performance involved mixing his own blood with food, an obsessive gesture that is simulated in Family Tyranny. In the late 1980s, McCarthy began using film and television sets as elements in video/performance installations. Often these elaborate fabrications involved the restaging of culturally-charged myths and icons, such as Heidi and Pinocchio, in the context of family psychodramas, Hollywood genres, and mass media.
Place of Birth: Not available
Birthday: August 04, 1945
Deathday: N/A
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Known For
Class Fool
1976-01-01
Class Fool
Overview: In a shamanistic, quasi-sexual ritual performance, McCarthy threw himself around a ketchup-spattered classroom at the University of California, San Diego until dazed and self-injured. He then vomited several times and inserted a Barbie doll into his rectum. The piece ended when the audience could no longer stand to watch his performance.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1976-01-01
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Black and White Tapes
1975-07-07
Black and White Tapes
Overview: Black and White Tapes derive from a series of performances Paul McCarthy undertook in his Los Angeles studio from 1970 to 1975. Conceived for the camera and performed alone or with only a few people present, these short performances use video to articulate both monitor and studio space.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1975-07-07
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Paul McCarthy: Destruction of the Body
2001-02-28
Paul McCarthy: Destruction of the Body
Overview: Drawing on the idiom and imagery of the consumer culture he grew up in, video artist Paul McCarthy distorts and mutates the familiar into the disturbing and grotesque as fairy tale narratives and foods are transformed into tableaus of abuse and violation.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2001-02-28
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Sauce
1974-02-06
Sauce
Overview: Performance art piece
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1974-02-06
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The Art Foundry
2014-04-25
The Art Foundry
Overview:
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2014-04-25
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Sailor's Meat (Sailor's Delight)
1975-04-28
Sailor's Meat (Sailor's Delight)
Overview: Here, the artist performs as the female protagonist of Russ Meyer’s soft-porn film, Europe in the Raw! (1963). Done up in black lace lingerie, heavy makeup, and a seductive expression, he meanders across the room, methodically exposing different body parts, accentuated by cropped close-ups. Yet the work quickly deviates from standard realms of sexual fantasy, devolving into something unexpectedly abnormal. Having thrust a hot dog up his ass and smeared himself with ketchup, he positions himself on all fours and “goes down” on a slab of glistening raw meat, burying his face in it, taking it in his teeth, drooling and spitting on it, and finally rubbing it over his body. He then adds ground beef to the mix, spreading it across the bed along with the steak, hot dogs, and ketchup and thrusting his body back and forth with increasing agitation, as if simultaneously humping and being humped by it. Such antics continue for nearly 45 minutes.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1975-04-28
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Becoming Paul McCarthy
2020-10-27
Becoming Paul McCarthy
Overview: On the influential and groundbreaking contemporary American artist
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2020-10-27
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Family Tyranny (Modeling and Molding)
1987-01-01
Family Tyranny (Modeling and Molding)
Overview: Experimental video about child abuse. McCarthy: "I was given access to a community television studio for two days of shooting and one day of editing. I had been given the grant based on a proposal to do a video tape on child abuse. I taped for one day alone and one day with Mike Kelley. I asked Mike Kelley to be the son and I would be the father. There was no written script. After taping for two days, I edited the tapes, making two separate tapes: Family Tyranny and Cultural Soup. They are often shown together."
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1987-01-01
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Cultural Soup
1987-01-01
Cultural Soup
Overview: A man makes soup with mayonnaise and dolls. McCarthy: "I was given access to a community television studio for two days of shooting and one day of editing. I had been given the grant based on a proposal to do a video tape on child abuse. I taped for one day alone and one day with Mike Kelley. I asked Mike Kelley to be the son and I would be the father. There was no written script. After taping for two days, I edited the tapes, making two separate tapes: Family Tyranny and Cultural Soup. They are often shown together."
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1987-01-01
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Heidi: Midlife Crisis Trauma Center and Negative Media-Engram Abreaction Release Zone
1992-10-30
Heidi: Midlife Crisis Trauma Center and Negative Media-Engram Abreaction Release Zone
Overview: A collaborative work based on Joanna Spyri's novel, Heidi.. The entire work consisted of a fabricated set, a group of partial and full life-size rubber figures, two large backdrop paintings, and a video tape shot entirely on the set. The set was installed at the center of the gallery (Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna)... We were interested in imitating film and television production, and exaggerating the fractured process of film. - Paul McCarthy In Heidi we toyed with this illusionary nature by treating the doubles and stand-ins for the actors as obvious sculpture, more in the manner of a puppet show than traditional film. - Mike Kelley
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1992-10-30
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Coach Stage Stage Coach
2019-02-15
Coach Stage Stage Coach
Overview: Paul McCarthy's reinterpretation of John Ford's classic western Stagecoach.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2019-02-15
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