Meat is Theatre

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01 MEAT IS THEATRE

MY IDEA OF FUN

SPRING 2012

MEAT IS

THEATRE


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MY IDEA OF FUN

01 MEA IS HEARE


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Introduction

An exploration into humanbehaviour at present. Our constantneed or entertainment and selinduglent pandering causes us to

mindlessly reblog inormationabout ourselves and others.Boredom murders the heart oour age while sanguinary creepstake the stage. Boredom stranglesthe lie rom the printed page.

Lie is a typographical error:were constantly writing andrewriting things over each other.


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Paul McCarthy has a certain cachetin the art world. He is also a bito a shocker. Te interview belowappeared in Bomb Magazine,Summer 2003. One o theperormance pieces illustratingthe interview is called Grand Pop.It shows Paul, seated on a bench,wearing the mask o an older man--- presumably his grandather. Teartist has his pants down, pouringa bottle o ketchup on his groin inwhich stands the headless torso o

a tiny girl doll. Te caption saysshe is rising out o his crotch whileher head sticks out o his ngernear his mouth. Like one suitedexecutive conversing with another,Paul talks intimately to the dollsabout sex, love, and amily, and alsohow to run a company efciently.

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Q. Te pulsing id. Tats what I

think about when I think about your videos. Partly achievedthrough minimal dialogue. Ageneralized wound is articulated,or dug up: anxiety, sexualtension, humiliation, bodilyuids, consciousness. You get alot o mileage out o words via aspare, ragmented mumbleloguethats more like chanting thandialogue, drilling words intothe ground rather than atother characters, and there is

something repetitious aboutthis method, within a singlework, then rom piece to piece, year to year. Can Pauls AnxietyChannel accommodate a ullerscript, or would that throw yourcharacters into the acting deepend and deate the lusciousucked-up universe you invent?

A. In high school I did a drawingo a mans ace looking out o the

picture plane straight at the viewer.Behind him in the landscape I

drew a square hole in the ground.I have always been interested indigging. I remember nding arock in a vacant lot when I was veyears old. I tried to break the rock.I pounded it with another rock.At one point I stopped poundingit and picked up the rock to carryit home. Aer a short distance, ahead appeared rom the rock. Ithink I was dressed in white. Allthe houses around me were white.It was a very bright day. Ive talked

to mysel in perormances sincethe 60s. But this auto audio babblegot louder in the 70s. At times Iwould talk rom the moment itstarted until the moment it ended.A muttering aceted languageserving a number o purposes,directed at me and or mysel. Itsa multitude, a kind o runabout.A mother, ather, brother, sisterthis and that. In Santa ChocolateShop there were ve perormers

including mysel. In Saloonthere were ve perormers.Tere was a script, but duringthe perormance the scripts areimprovised, repeated, and becomelanguage appropriation tryingto be mediated into the other.

Q. When you say languageserving a number opurposes --- what purposes?

A. A purpose, B purpose,

C purpose and so on.

Q. Back in the day a ton ointeresting artists were doingperormances. Now that energyseems to be directed toward videoand lm. Artists acting up or thecamera. Where has perormancegone? Why arent people workingwith the live, high-risk moment?Why do the majority o artistsinsist on being mediated? Why

the distance and saety, whybehave on a big installation

screen, or a monitor on the ooror a pedestal? I know its hard ona perormer (physically draining)but that used to be the appeal,the rush, which is why all actorswant to perorm in plays, thevenue o the real. Its odd to seea whole orm almost disappear.Tere used to be perormancemagazines and regular venuesat museums and galleries orperormance. Not too long agotheater and perormance were

blurring; it was a ertile time.

A. When I perorm or the camerathere are others standing on thesidelines in the void. Its veryHollywood to stand and watch amovie being made. I am planninga perormance in a theater inBerlin this year at Christmastime.I dont know yet whether it will beon the stage or not. I think I wouldlike to use the entire theater as a

perormance room, the theateras a set. Maybe I will extendthe stage out into the audience,reduce the seating. I am interestedin blurring our positions.Ive always been interestedin the audience being a prop.

Q. Youve been teaching art orover 25 years. alk about the newnishing schools weve got goinghere in LA and the hunger orimmediate commercial success

in avor o the slow brew, thelong haul. Whats the dierencebetween an art student todayand the younguns o the 70s and80s? How has thinking about artchanged? How has UCLA changedas a school? And while wereat it, what do you think aboutcurators obsession with youth?

A. Penis clam envy. Te studentsare a congregation. Its a religious

experience --- the galleries, themuseums, are religious temples.

Paul McCarthy

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Te galleries are all on theprowl. Wholl get picked? Artistsdeclare themselves regularly asmisunderstood. Its a pot o victims.As painters, they ace a rectangularcanvas each day, themselves, thecanvas and the studio. Its an oldproblem, with a history and atradition. Tere is an old eudboiling, painters versus conceptual

artists. Te doctrine o paintingand beauty versus the doctrine oMichael Asher. Its all locked up inthis age-old ickering. Ten thereis technology --- the Unabomber,theory, ear o theory. Te artistsaect theory versus theoryaects the artists. Who controlsthe castle? Its a laugh a minute.

Q. You were aicted with apretty strong case o dyslexia.Reading and writing has alwaysbeen an arduous process or

you. You mainly consume artbooks, not novels. Tis harksback to Question One, aboutthe repetitious speak o yourcharacters in videos. Yourcharacters dont talk to eachother and converse; they talkto themselves, they go on or awhile, stop, and then anothercharacter utters something,

but they talk to no one, just thehuman wall. Communicationbecomes animal. Characters heareach others sounds and maybereact, maybe not. Teyre all intheir own universe. What do youmake o this style? Also, wheneveryou use text in your drawings, thewords are misspelled and twistedup; it seems more about sound,a textured phonetic thing ratherthan words with a relatively xedmeaning. You take language thatis already slippery and grease it

up even urther, shoot it out othe esophagus and let it y intothe air as i it were a material.

A. Repression and annual animalcommunication --- dyslexia is aboring subject. A more interestingsubject is the ourth grade. One omy earliest memories o a drawingby a ellow artist was a pair o glasses

rendered on the top o my desk atWoodstock Elementary School,ourth grade, second oor, middleo the room. I dont know who didthe drawing --- a pencil drawingetched into the wood. I have nointerest in conventional language,only when it is an appropriation toillustrate something else. Languageis architecture as an institution orrepression. I/we cant talk seriously.Its a grid o snakes. A tic-tac-toegrid. Verbal tic-tac-toe. Who hasthe janitor by his toe? Marvin


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Marick had a huge hose. Duringseventh grade in the boys showerroom, Gerald Cook clenched

Marvins hose, his penis, and pulledhim through the locker room.

Q (marvins penis) Paul, why doyou think about me? Im touched.

A. Because it was a tragedy, you,the penis, in Gerald Cooks handswas stretched. Gerald pulled you,Marvin, screaming through theshower and locker room andout onto the basketball court.

Q. (marvins penis) Paul,aer all these years, why are you still thinking o me?

A. Sexual traumas. I rememberit as sexual theater, theater andarchitecture: the shower room,the locker room and the gym.Te lighting. How it was playedout with the other boys in theroom and the architectural space,a labyrinth o hallways and

doors, moving into a large openspace-institutional separationbased on gender and unction.

Q. (marvins penis) I am honoredthat youve elevated me to sucha high cultural position. Tepenis is inherently tragic, isnt it?

A. No more than anyother om, Dick or Harry.

Q. I like how you thinko sexual trauma as anarchitectural problem.

A. I think o architecture as arame and/or stage or trauma. Asa rame and/or stage, architecturecontextualizes and eects trauma.

Q. Isnt conventionallanguage just a medium?

A. Yes, a medium --- or science,or theory, or advertising soup.

Q. Te rst 30 years o your artpractice was a private solitaryact. Tings are more complicatednow. Youre an industry. Youemploy lots o people. Youvegot a dozen projects going on atthe same time. Deadlines andcommitments up the wazoo. Itsgetting kind o hectic, as theysay. You could ease the pace iyou wanted to --- its your lie andcareer --- but you choose to keep

it in high gear, pedal to the metal.Have things gotten out o hand, oris it all exactly where you want it?

A. Sometimes I know why, how,this, that. Sometimes I dont. Icollect telephones. Send me yourphones. Some days I like my shoes.Some days I hate them. Not enoughtime to think about him or her.Pushing the wrong button signiesa squint. I you squint it mufesmy voice --- wipe yoursel on the

carpet, and yoga is good or you.Hold your knees and scoot orward.

Q. Your practice is kind o aamily business. Karen andDamon (wie and son) arecentral to the enterprise, as wellas Mara (daughter), who hasrecently pulled up a chair in theofce. Tis is a unique setup.Ideal or you, but inconceivableor other artists with amilies.

alk about that one, Pop.

A. Karen and I cookbreakast. Bake cakes. Weeat out. We have lunch at 12.

Q. Joseph Beuys, our hero,once on the minds o so manypeople, now ading. Youvebeen reading about him lately.What have you ound out?

Q. Beuys as patina, Beuys as clich.

A. Boy as patina, boy as clich. I was

interested in Beuys in the 70s andearly 80s. I havent really lookedat his work in the past ew years,but I have thought about his careerand his eect. Beuys was critical toEuropean artists being looked atby the art world. Tis began in the70s. Te shi rom the emphasison New York to Europe began withBeuys. He was an art star, the rstEuropean art star since the prewarperiod. However, it is curious that

he is totally dismissed now. Itsconvenient or the art world tohave lapses in memory. Its good orbusiness. His work has an eect onartists today. Its part o the trickle-down eect. You can see it in theinstallations o artists now. I am notinterested in art being a cure-all.

Q. alk about holes. Teyveappeared in your workconsistently or 30 years. Holesdrilled or dug up, holes to peer

through, gawk at and poke, holeslike empty eye sockets, portraitsto consciousness, the edge o arame, a cameras lens. You madethis metaphor about culturalcontrol, what you can see and whatyou cant. Please explain urther.A. Holes are access rom one spaceto another --- outside to inside ---inside to outside-inside to inside.Round and square holes, body holesand architecture holes, mouth,

ears, eye sockets, rectum, vagina,penis hole, ront door, back door,windows. Holes are also openingsto sleeves, deposit chambers andpockets. Donuts and rods, as sexualmechanisms, rub devices. Drillingholes, making a hole with a drillbit. its about sex and conusion.

Q. Earlier you mentioned that your scripts are improvised,


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repeated and become language appropriation trying to bemediated into the other. What do you mean by that? Along thesame lines there was this gem, repression and annual animalcommunication, when I asked about your use o spoken andwritten language. Tat seems like a bulls-eye. Please elaborate.

A. Appropriation oen comes rst. Te blah blah, the other, is oenthe objective. Communication and sel-realization as hacky hack.

Q. It seems like your interest in making lms and

videos started when you stopped doing perormances.

A. No. My interest in lm and video goes back to the 60s. For themost part lm, video and perormance were always connected.I have always been interested in the presence o the camera. Butthere were perormances that were not recorded. Te action wasspontaneous and there was no time or equipment. Aer the late 80sI started to make videotapes that were directly related to a productionset, a location, a television studio or a sound stage. It was aboutappropriating Hollywood. I wanted to make a lm on Paramounts lot.

Q. Do you nd it strange that people have such strongreactions to ecal matter, blood and mucus? Te slightestthing that pops out o us is a total horror. Arent thesestandard human materials? Why the shock o whats inside us?

A. Maybe it is a conditioned response: were taught to be disgusted byour uids. Maybe its related to a ear o death. Body uids are basematerial. Disneyland is so clean; hygiene is the religion o ascism.Te body sack, the sack you dont enter, its taboo to enter the sack.Fear o sex and the loss o control; visceral goo, waddle, waddle..

Q. Walt Disney the man, the reak with the harsh, right-wing politics,and Walt Disney the creator o all those remarkable characters and thecheerully perverse world o Disneyland. Share your Disney thoughts?

A. Disney has something to do with the uture. Its a virtual space,not unlike the Acropolis. Te Disney characters, the environment,the aesthetic are so rened, the relationships so perect. Its theinvention o a world. A Shangri-La that is directly connected to a

political agenda, a type o prison that you are seduced into visiting.


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01 MEAT IS THEATRE

MY IDEA OF FUN

SPRING 2012

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Meat is Theatre