Interview: Paul McCarthy

Paul McCarthy: Caribbean Pirates, 2001-05. Performance, video, installation, colour photographs courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London

Paul McCarthy: Caribbean Pirates, 2001-05. Performance, video, installation, colour photographs courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London

Paul McCarthy: Caribbean Pirates, 2001-05. Performance, video, installation, colour photographs courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London

Paul McCarthy: Caribbean Pirates, 2001-05. Performance, video, installation, colour photographs courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London		Paul McCarthy: Caribbean Pirates, 2001-05. Performance, video, installation, colour photographs courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London
Paul McCarthy: Caribbean Pirates, 2001-05. Performance, video, installation, colour photographs courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London		Paul McCarthy: Caribbean Pirates, 2001-05. Performance, video, installation, colour photographs courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London
Paul McCarthy: Caribbean Pirates, 2001-05. Performance, video, installation, colour photographs courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London		Paul McCarthy: Caribbean Pirates, 2001-05. Performance, video, installation, colour photographs courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London

Needless to say, the amount of blood and the focus on brutality and violence in your works is drawing endless parallels to the political world scene. With such earlier works as Bossy Burger or Painter, but also a more recent work like Caribbean Pirates, takes up this focus. Can you comment on your interest and history with visualising brutality and referring to violence and destruction in your works?

Okay, how far back does it go? Well it is difficult for me to discern where the “me” is and where the cultural influence is. If I start thinking about, for example, the subject of destruction or violence in art, then I also think about abject. And here I think of abject as related to body fluid, liquid and stuff like that. I think that the type of artist that I gravitated towards in the late fifties and early sixties, who dealt with certain subjects such as artists like Francis Bacon. I mean it was an interesting period of time, where people were fighting for civil rights and questioning the war in Vietnam with all types of demonstrations.

I remember that I at one point became very interested in these happenings, which by its nature was about the appearance of destruction. Interesting even though you were cap-pro (re. capitalist) or it was about every-day-life; it was about some kind of greediness. I remember that I was really interested in this book called “Destruction and art symposium” made by the artist called Gustav Metzger that I had. The book had a manifesto of the role that destruction has in art, and how destruction can be art. This book was like, caught up in what I think was an early view in art on its role to critic, society, and brutality. You know, an early idea of how an artist could be, and the start to look at the western world in more critical ways. I mean, mistrusting government, or mistrusting the cooperative, as being directly connected to cultural violence in the world. And I think believing as an artist, you felt that you had some kind of responsibility to expose that.

Then on the other hand, as an individual you start to confuse this interest, by looking at yourself, and at your own abject and sexuality. Take Hollywood for example, where you were at the same time exited and disgusted. Excited by violence and disgusted by violence, as contradictions in ourselves as individuals.

There was an emerging interest in sexual imagery and violence that became some kind of material for a new type of research, which always created conflicts. You were conflicted with yourself, and it was not very clear what I was doing or saying, as an artist. Does your work function? Why the repetition? There was a strong thought of not believing that art could change everything, when you live in America, and especially when you live in L.A. Artists in L.A. were and are exactly two inches below criminals. It is like L.A. does not need artists, it already has Jack Nicholson and Angelina Jolie. Neither do the artists see themselves as having cultural affect. I think that is a very European idea. European artists see themselves as influencing and affecting the society.

So in a way, the work began in that direction, and here I am today still doing it. I am aware that it is necessary what I am doing to some degree with the current situation, at least in the past 10 years. Not that I am changing anything, but I am talking about something that is real. Real as a critic on culture, and real as an existential individual point of view.

Paul McCarthy: Bossy Burger, 1991. 365x865x700 cm. Set from the television show Family Affair, studio lights, linoleum floor, video decks, monitors, residue of performance Hauser & Wirth Collection, Switzerland Paul McCarthy: Bossy Burger, 1991. 365x865x700 cm. Set from the television show Family Affair, studio lights, linoleum floor, video decks, monitors, residue of performance Hauser & Wirth Collection, Switzerland

Paul McCarthy: The Garden, 1992. 914 x 610 x 671 cm. Woos, fiberglass, motors, latex rubber, foam rubber, wigs, clothing, artificial turf, rocks, pineneedles, leaves and trees Jeffrey Deitch, Deitch Projects

Paul McCarthy: The Garden, 1992. 914 x 610 x 671 cm. Woos, fiberglass, motors, latex rubber, foam rubber, wigs, clothing, artificial turf, rocks, pineneedles, leaves and trees Jeffrey Deitch, Deitch Projects Paul McCarthy: The Garden, 1992. 914 x 610 x 671 cm. Woos, fiberglass, motors, latex rubber, foam rubber, wigs, clothing, artificial turf, rocks, pineneedles, leaves and trees Jeffrey Deitch, Deitch Projects

Speaking about criticism, in your actions of performance, and generally in your works you have many layers of criticism. You use representations in the shape of comic-looking, look-alike or cheap-looking stereotypes and archetypes of celebrities, cooks, painters, etc. call you tell a little bit about your use of representations, and the idea behind using them as actors for your critique?

In the early seventies, I was making two types of works. I think one type was, related to a task or a repetition of an action. I would work in my studio with my video camera with no real plans. Though I had a couple of drawings with me sometimes. Then I would have this idea where I would stand up and sit down. And then in the action I realised that if I was sitting down and then stood up without wearing my pants, my penis fell below my legs, I was a woman sitting down, and a man when I stood up. Then I started doing it over and over again, symbolising mother/father, mother/father… Works like that, or where I, for example, continuously practiced spinning for a certain amount of time. There was not an attempt to hide who I was, I was there, I was Paul. I was who you saw, it was not behind a mask, it was not a persona. It was very direct, and in one way very reminiscent of a type of filming, video or type of performance that goes on, and that still goes on.

For example when I tried to learn how to spin, it was really an activity to figure out how to do it. And I got up to being able to spin for an hour. By hitting on the wall, that position met the room, and further more concentrated about being in the center, the spinning seemed to slow down.

These types of pieces, of which I made about 60-70 different types. And they kind of explored my own fiscal indolence and a more architectural interest in what happened if I turned the camera up side down, or reversed the angle etc. I was always clearly there, and it was always me doing this, without any attempt to hide or deceive.

Then, I began at one point to make pieces where a persona occurred. That opened another type of door, more related to a narrative or fantasy. I was in a way acting out a story of a character. And after the first piece I thought, that it was a little bit like pretend. And I understood it as pretending filmmaking. It opened up an exploration of the fiscal and the concrete. And the other direction became an exploration of the fantasy, persona, narrative and metaphor world.

I think that the first work was made in 1971, and that then becomes a direction of performance for me. The work began more and more to concentrate and to focus on the different personas, pretend performance or theatre. But the structure from my early exploration was in my work still in some way. I was still interested in the position of the camera, how it moves and repeating certain gestures again. So it was in my work, but no longer played out in the same structural way.

In my new interest in persona and narrative, I began to include these masks that were bought in toyshops. I selected these masks after what was happening in the town. For example, Madonna was in town, so I picked a Madonna mask. Alfred E. Neumann was in town, so I picked an Alfred E. Neumann mask.

When I did the piece Bossy Burger I literately went down to a toy store and saw the Alfred E. mask and thought why not, so I went back to the studio and made the performance the same day.

So I was not thinking that I wanted to be Alfred E. Neumann, but what was interesting about that, was not that I was Alfred E. Neumann, but that I was changing persona.

In the beginning when I performed as different characters it was basically men, patriarchs or all types of different animals. I was a pig once, for example. Then I moved the focus to young boys, and I pretended to be a goon boy, and out-of-lesson boy. I felt in a weird way, that I looked like these masks, for example that I looked like Alfred E. Neumann when I was a boy. I was some kind of Charlie Chaplin, a Charlie McCarthy. A clown.

So, these characters occurred, and they were often characters taken from pop culture. Where I did not perform with other people in my early works, I began to use toy dolls, stuffed animals as if they were performers. That was in a way for me, a way to perform with somebody. Even though it was a doll, it was not very different from childrens’ television’s doll entertainment.

That’s basically how the stuffed animal interest and appearance in my works happened. I started to assign personalities to them, where the lions were fathers and the little boy dolls were brothers and the girls were sisters, for example. And all that was played out in these fantasies and performances.

At the same time I was completely aware that I was dealing with low culture, by using the material symbolising low culture in a “pop” way. I was also aware that I, at the same time, was bringing new material to the art scene. At that time material was working as a signature. You had Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soups. You had Yves Klein’s blue. These things were signature materials. So I was aware that I was using a special kind of material with the dolls and masks. They represented, in a way, something very American. Not that you don’t have teddy bears in Europe, but somehow I see myself as one of the first generation with kids television with dolls and cartoons. I was interested in using that aspect, and I knew that I was introducing something that had not been a big part of the art world before.

I was generally interested in the immanent and inimmanent representations. The way that the inimmanent begins to become immanent. For example the person who has the teddy bear, and who knows that it is not really alive, but who begins to give it a persona and take it with him. I made a couple of works with that interest, but in the long run I was not only interested in that aspect.

Paul McCarthy: Bavarian Kick, 1987. 366 x 296 x 406 cm. Wood, doors, metal, motors, fiberglass, clothing Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Austria

Paul McCarthy: Michael Jackson Fucked Up Big Head Big Foot Carbon Fiber Blue, 2004. 308 x 246 x 149 cm. Carbon fiber, blue The artist, courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London		Paul McCarthy: Michael Jackson White, 1997-99. 264 x 244 x 140 cm. Fiberglass, metal, wood, paint Hauser & Wirth Collection, Switzerland		Paul McCarthy: Michael Jackson Black, 1997-99. 264 x 244 x 140 cm. Fiberglass, metal, wood, paint Hauser & Wirth Collection, Switzerland
Paul McCarthy: Santa Long Neck, 2004. 267 x 103 x 119 cm. Carbon fiber red The artist, courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London		Paul McCarthy: Santa Candy Cane, 2004. 136 x 64 x 72 cm. Carbon fiber green The artist, courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London		Paul McCarthy: Santa Butt Plug, 2004. 112 x 56 x 53 cm. Carbon fiber brown The artist, courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London

In your sculptures you remove the actor from you to the object. Both characters plays a role in your small stories, do you see a similarity between yourself as a performer and the sculpture as being a story performed?

I think that when I quit doing performances to some degree, in the late eighties, I was more interested in making more figurative representations.

The piece The Bavarian kick was originally meant to be a full size mechanic rubber figure. It was as far as my ideas could get with dealing with mechanism. So my piece also ended with that, I never really finished it, and it ended as this stick figure. The main idea came from my interest in rubber and wax figures in the late eighties.

I have in the past 10 years been on a venture finding out the representation of my sculptures and installations. Trying to find out how to abstract something, and the different ways to abstract something. Now it is more and more merging together, where the sculpture and my statues are taking over my role as a performer. That is the direction it is seams to be going right now, in my works. But I do not think that this interest will stop my video or performances from happening either.

I was interested in working with a substitute to myself in my performances. A mechanised figure, as a substitute. An immanent mechanical replacement for my body. So I became interested in that, and really interested in Disney land.

There is an element of performance still as well in my sculptures. For example Michael Jackson, the blue one, was created as being a performance. As well in my work Santa Claus, where the arms were sawed of, and the head was pushed on to a pipe. So the sculpture needed that action, to become what I became in the process of a performance. The same goes for my drawings. The ideas are carried out in very performative ways. As being a part of a performance action.

Paul McCarthy: Red Nose + Head - Tongue + Men Wrapped + Frat Wrapped, 2003, 1991, 2003, 2003. C-print mounted on foam, collage, plastic tube, acrylic colour, clear film; Marker on contact paper, mounted on plywood; C-print mounted on foam; C-print mounted on foam The artist, courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London

Paul McCarthy: Red Nose + Head - Tongue + Men Wrapped + Frat Wrapped, 2003, 1991, 2003, 2003. C-print mounted on foam, collage, plastic tube, acrylic colour, clear film; Marker on contact paper, mounted on plywood; C-print mounted on foam; C-print mounted on foam The artist, courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London		Paul McCarthy: Red Nose + Head - Tongue + Men Wrapped + Frat Wrapped, 2003, 1991, 2003, 2003. C-print mounted on foam, collage, plastic tube, acrylic colour, clear film; Marker on contact paper, mounted on plywood; C-print mounted on foam; C-print mounted on foam The artist, courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London

You mention Disney, and generally you use it as a reference in a lot of your works. Can you tell about the contrast in referring to a children’s company when working with absurdity, body art and non children friendly themes?

I got interested in their cartoons, comics and then started using their characters. But later in the late eighties and early nineties I turn my focus from Disney’s characters, to Disney Land. And here I am thinking about it as Disney Land, as a sculpture factory. The mechanised figures. A robotic rise with their robotic figures. I was looking at their town-areas and fibreglass objects as sculptures. That whole manifestation of mechanism really got me interested.

I was critical of it, of course, as an imperial factory spreading western values. But at the same time I remember that I was very fascinated by the whole sculpture factory from an artist point of view, not looking at the values or morality of it, but at the fact that Disney was creating something as big as that. I was super interested of it as the world more fiscally. I still believe that it is an incredible thing.

But what happened, was that it took the goodness, the entertainment and made it to imperialism and focused on finances.

Paul McCarthy: Houseboat, 2001-05. 3.66 x 2.44 x 9.45 m. Video set/installation: metal, fiberglass, glass, wood

Paul McCarthy: Houseboat, 2001-05. 3.66 x 2.44 x 9.45 m. Video set/installation: metal, fiberglass, glass, wood		Paul McCarthy: Houseboat, 2001-05. 3.66 x 2.44 x 9.45 m. Video set/installation: metal, fiberglass, glass, wood
Paul McCarthy: Houseboat, 2001-05. 3.66 x 2.44 x 9.45 m. Video set/installation: metal, fiberglass, glass, wood		Paul McCarthy: Houseboat, 2001-05. 3.66 x 2.44 x 9.45 m. Video set/installation: metal, fiberglass, glass, wood
Paul McCarthy: Houseboat Party, 2005. Video, 3 screen projection		Paul McCarthy: Houseboat Party, 2005. Video, 3 screen projection

Humour seams to have a big significance in your works as well. Interesting works like The Dreaming pig or The Bavarian kick deal with humour. But the absurdity of blood, flesh wounds, violence and horror seam to reach a point where the viewer can do nothing else but cry or laugh. How big a part does humour play in your works?

Well, for myself, I can only say that it is to like the laugh, and wanting to laugh. I like to be around people who are making jokes, and constantly funny. Personally I like that.

In my pieces I like the thought of mixing anarchy and humour. I think that these two things go together always. Also needed to be said is that I like to make jokes, like for example the ones I did on the patriarch.

I kind of like the role of a clown. I am interesting in the aspect and fact of being a clown as an artist. This aspect comes up a lot, for example with the big nose that keeps reappearing in my works, refers to a role of a clown. Not being red though, but representing some kind of jokester.

It is interesting up against the role of a shaman or the more serious roles, which the artists play and want to see themselves as. Basically for me it is about being a clown.

Thank you•

Paul McCarthy: Dreaming, 2005. 180 x 62 x 71 cm. Painted silicone, artificial hair, shirt, lawn chair, foam The artist, courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London

Paul McCarthy: Bavarian Deer, 1987/99. 270 x 180 cm. Cibachrome photograph The artist, courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London

Paul McCarthy: Assortment, The Trunks, Human Object and PROPO Photographs, 1972-2003. 335 x 305 x 122 cm. photographs: 183 x 122 cm. 6 trunks containing props from performances 1972-84; Human Object: stool, plastic bag, wood, rubber, plumbing fixture; photographs of all the objects in the trunks Friderich Christian Flick Collection		Paul McCarthy: Assortment, The Trunks, Human Object and PROPO Photographs, 1972-2003. 335 x 305 x 122 cm. photographs: 183 x 122 cm. 6 trunks containing props from performances 1972-84; Human Object: stool, plastic bag, wood, rubber, plumbing fixture; photographs of all the objects in the trunks Friderich Christian Flick Collection
Paul McCarthy: Dead H, 1968/75. 15 x 46 x 168 cm. Galvanized steel Collection of the artist		Paul McCarthy: Dead Viking, 1992. 30 x 183 x 61 cm. Acrylic fur, wood, rubber, clothing Collection of Peter Norton, Santa Monica

Paul McCarthy: Film of Desire I & II, 1970-71. Magazine pages. The artist, courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London

Paul McCarthy: Signed Playboy Comics, 1976-80. 28 x 20 cm. Pen and collage on magazine pages. The collection of the artist

Paul McCarthy: Arranged tables, Photographs and Relics, 1975-99. table: 183 x 97 x 74 cm.3 pieces, each: 244 x 183 x 74 cm. Mixed materials. Hauser & Wirth Collection, Switzerland

Paul McCarthy: Arranged tables, Photographs and Relics, 1975-99. table: 183 x 97 x 74 cm.3 pieces, each: 244 x 183 x 74 cm. Mixed materials. Hauser & Wirth Collection, Switzerland		Paul McCarthy: Arranged tables, Photographs and Relics, 1975-99. table: 183 x 97 x 74 cm.3 pieces, each: 244 x 183 x 74 cm. Mixed materials. Hauser & Wirth Collection, Switzerland
Paul McCarthy: Arranged tables, Photographs and Relics, 1975-99. table: 183 x 97 x 74 cm.3 pieces, each: 244 x 183 x 74 cm. Mixed materials. Hauser & Wirth Collection, Switzerland		Paul McCarthy: Arranged tables, Photographs and Relics, 1975-99. table: 183 x 97 x 74 cm.3 pieces, each: 244 x 183 x 74 cm. Mixed materials. Hauser & Wirth Collection, Switzerland
Paul McCarthy: But Plug Chair, 1978. 88.9 x 45.7 x 43.2 cm. Wood chair, rubber "Doc Johnson" butt plug, bolt The artist, courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London		Paul McCarthy: Ketchup Sandwich, 1970-2006. 76 x 76 x 76 cm. Glass, ketchup The artist, courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London

Paul McCarthy: Apple Heads on Swiss Cheese, 1997-99. 370 x 190 x 150, 370 x 153 x 150 cm. 2 sculptures, fiberglass, silicone Hauser & Wirth Collection, Switzerland		Paul McCarthy: Spaghetti Man, 1993. 254 x 84 x 56 cm. Fiberglass, metal, urethane, rubber, acrylic fur, clothing Collection du Fonds régional d'art contemporain Languedoc-Roussillon (FRAC)

Paul McCarthy: Mechanical Pig, 2003-05. 101.5 x 147.5 x 157.5 cm. Silicone, platinum, fiberglass, metal, electrical components The artist, courtesy Hauser & Wirth Zürich London