Paul McCarthy
by Ralph Rugoff, Kristine Stiles, Giacinto Di Pietrantoni.
Phaidon Press Limited, London, 1997
160 pp., illust. ISBN 0-7148-3552-8
Reviewed by Sonya Rapoport
The book Paul McCarthy beautifully designed, generous color
illustrations, and large format presentation, is a scholarly documenation
of an enigmatic artist who employs plastic prosthetics, processed foods as
body fluids and overt sexual behavior in his own creative process.
McCarthy's extensive output of performance, video and sculptural works are
described in intelligently parceled chapters: INTERVIEW, SURVEY, FOCUS,
ARTIST'S WRITINGS, CHRONOLOGY and ARTIST'S CHOICE. The latter section is
McCarthy's own rendition of Jean-Paul Sartre's NAUSEA from which McCarthy
spliced fragments from the original text. These selections, perhaps
unwitting, reveal McCarthy's visceral core.
Kristine Stiles, in her INTERVIEW with McCarthy, attempts to probe beyond
the props into his mysterious center by focusing on questions of latent
violence and beauty. This exchange between interviewer and interviewee, in
which the roles occasionally interchange, creates a tension of hide and
seek, resolve and dissolve. He wants to control what his audience sees a la
Du Champ's ETANTS DONNE. She wants to go beyond. She is not diverted by his
use of metonymical devices. Ketchup for blood appears to be a constant.
I suggest they both look at his selected excerpts from Jean-Paul Sartre's
Nausea.
Ralph Rugoff in this excellent SURVEY of incestuous and absurd couplings
places the theme of violence within the context of social conditioning by
family and media. His skillful descriptions of the complex work gracefully
weave in and out of fine art references that clarify the illustrations.
Rugoff sees Paul McCarthy as "master of the taboo-smash".
I see the work distinctly related to tribal rituals that induce vomiting,
nose-penile association, skin stretching, tree-mating and the pig man.
The book, Paul McCarthy is a tour de force about a controversial yet
important artist of Beuysian tradition.
