{"id":201372,"date":"2022-07-09T15:14:56","date_gmt":"2022-07-09T06:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adfwebmagazine.jp\/?p=201372"},"modified":"2022-07-09T15:14:56","modified_gmt":"2022-07-16T04:32:16","slug":"notes-on-june-2022-and-paul-mccarthy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adfwebmagazine.jp\/en\/art\/notes-on-june-2022-and-paul-mccarthy\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes on June 2022 and Paul McCarthy"},"content":{"rendered":"

About McCarthy\u2019s works<\/h3>\r\n

R<\/span>eporting here on the ground in June 2022 and yeah, I guess it makes me smile. I'm laughing a lot at things lately that taste really bitter on the way down. I know, I know, how low. Nevertheless, here we are now, still stupid and even more contagious. It's Monday morning and I'm eating my Grapenuts, banana and frosted mini-wheats cereal combo. There's a palpable sense that the handle of a giant ass vice is being twisted and the pressure on a vast majority of people is causing what friends here describe as \u201cweird times''. A letter from my landlord arrived. Days later I finally open it and see that my rent will be increased by seven percent and at that moment I forget just why I taste.\u00a0 It\u2019s a total vibe.<\/p>\r\n

That morning, I listened to \u201cSmells Like Teen Spirit\u201d on repeat for forty five minutes straight and it was remarkable listening to something fearless, ironic, visceral and creatively ambiguous.\u00a0 It\u2019s quintessential 90\u2019s grunge but didn\u2019t strike me as dated and I didn\u2019t have a nostalgic experience, longing for something that never really was, but rather found myself unironically reveling in what had been captured.\u00a0 I have no problems admitting that at certain moments within that forty five minute span, there were tears running down my face and the hair on my arms was standing up on end.\u00a0 Goosebumps, too, all over.\u00a0 It was some kind of electrical current pulse that nearly caused me to ugly cry and laugh hysterically all at the same time.\u00a0 It was very close to happening.\u00a0 It\u2019s somehow fitting that I was looking at McCarthy\u2019s work very heavily this month.\u00a0 It feels <\/em>like something when I see it.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a prop or a speculative investment vessel that contains a very fleeting trace of what art is or was or supposed to be.\u00a0 It\u2019s like, very heavy and communicates something authentic and difficult and most importantly it\u2019s offensive. It feels <\/em>like something and, like it or not, it sticks <\/em>like pieces of wet cat poop to toilet paper.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Paul McCarthy - A&E, Adolf Adam & Eva Eve, Santa Anita session<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

A fissure on America\u2019s forehead or perhaps one on its anus, wherever it hurts the most.\u00a0 A stained, woolen lined slipper at the bottom of POZZZY <\/em>reinforces its inherent split and the lack of its partner makes it all the more explicit.\u00a0 I once read a book by Samuel Beckett, How it is<\/em>.\u00a0 From the scratch of my memory I can peel out lines from it on command, \u201cwe\u2019re on a veranda smothered in verbena the scented sun dapples the red tile yes I assure you the huge head hatted with birds and flowers is bowed down over my curls the eyes burn with severe love I offer her mine pale upcast to the sky whence cometh our help and which I know perhaps even then with time shall pass away<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 I like to think I memorized this passage because it was the only reprieve from the reality of the book about a man crawling through the mud.\u00a0 Memories, consciousness, images overlapping, running mind grafted over the physical reality of his dire situation routing through and creating a humid, human, earthen crevice.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Paul McCarthy - A&E, POZZZY, Santa Anita session<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

Yes, Paul McCarthy is the creeping ball of pubic hair and wet pancake batter that lives in the fissure in America\u2019s ass and it\u2019s an incredible achievement to have carved out and laid claim to that territory.\u00a0 It\u2019s the inescapable ugly looking back from the mirror and it contains so much of America that it\u2019s impossible to look away.\u00a0 The jaw of the Mickey Mouse face drops at the sight of its own appearance.\u00a0 Hot, garbage-garlic belches ring perpetual and as plangent as the day is long.\u00a0 The most impressive part of his drawings is that on top of everything, they\u2019re so funny and seductive that I\u2019m tempted to enter into a teenage suicide pact with them and ask my parents if they can sleep over on Friday night.\u00a0 I would of course wake up the next morning horrified and do it again Saturday night.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Paul McCarthy - A&E, ASSSS, Santa Anita session (Detail)<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

McCarthy\u2019s work completely obliterates us at a time when it\u2019s already difficult to maintain any sense of continuity (note the disjointed structure of the writing).\u00a0 A conservative court has set us back decades regarding human autonomy when things weren\u2019t great before.\u00a0 They\u2019re for sure going to get worse with concealed carry, guns blazing.\u00a0 Very, very American.\u00a0 The Democratic party is still weak, politically and creatively impoverished.\u00a0 Uncertainty and Entropy hold hands and eventually get married. They have many many many children and somehow never get divorced.\u00a0 Eva and Adolph, here we are now, entertain us.\u00a0 McCarthy\u2019s work tells us everything we need to know about power, the culture industry, institutional structure, the performative grift and the connective tissue that has held the fleet of pirate ships together.<\/p>\r\n

McCarthy\u2019s work envelops you in a way that\u2019s very uncomfortable because the truth of it is never ever far away, in fact, it\u2019s hiding in plain sight and has been for decades.\u00a0 His career spans over 50 years.\u00a0 The pop culture iconography touches nearly everyone and he uses it to great effect.\u00a0 Paul has always done the hard work of excavating it for us in the form of drawings, sculptures, performances and video.\u00a0 Here, in collaboration with the German actor Lilith Strangengberg, they writhe around on a table structure in character as Adolph and Eva where the drawings they produce provide a constant reminder of the presence of and potential rise of fascism and other grotesque forms of institutional power.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Paul McCarthy - A&E, Head Stack, Santa Anita session<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

Paul McCarthy.\u00a0 A&E Drawings with Lilith Stangenberg is on view through July 17th at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles.\u00a0 More information can be found at \"Paul McCarthy. A&E Drawings A&E Drawing Session 2021 With Lilith Stangenberg<\/a>\".<\/p><\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About McCarthy\u2019s works eporting here on the ground in June 2022 and yeah, I guess it makes me smile. I’m laugh […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":201364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"\"Notes on June 2022 and Paul McCarthy\" #PaulMcCarthy #artsy #art #adf #npoadf","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[6],"tags":[54,55,115,121,177,446],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.adfwebmagazine.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/adf-web-magazine-paul-mccarthy-2.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adfwebmagazine.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201372"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adfwebmagazine.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adfwebmagazine.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adfwebmagazine.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adfwebmagazine.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.adfwebmagazine.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adfwebmagazine.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adfwebmagazine.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adfwebmagazine.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adfwebmagazine.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}