ART WARS
Continued from
Nov. 25, 2005
From today’s New York Times:
A review of a current Manhattan art exhibition—
“It begins with a juxtaposition of early body-oriented videos by Mr. Nauman and Paul McCarthy, who, quickly following Mr. Nauman’s lead, was in his studio in Los Angeles videotaping home-alone performance pieces by 1970. The contrast is pure Apollo-versus-Dionysus.”
More on Paul McCarthy from artandculture.com:
“If you walk into a room and find everything you held dear in childhood degraded, chances are it’s a Paul McCarthy installation. McCarthy is known for shocking, sexually charged pieces that feature benign cartoon and pop-culture characters — Olive Oyl and Santa Claus, among others — in a bacchanalia of blood and feces.
The 1974 video ‘Hot Dog’ shoots to the heart of the adolescent ‘gross-out’ as McCarthy tapes his penis into a hot dog bun, then packs his pie hole full of franks and wraps himself in gauze. Another piece from the 70s called ‘Sailor’s Meat’ finds the artist dressed as a blonde hooker smeared with blood and ‘knowing’ a pile of raw meat….
Critics often compare his work with that of the Viennese Actionists whose performances were also characterized by gore, raw sexuality, and abused food.”
Related material:
The Wiener Kreis in
yesterday’s 1:06 PM entry
and the five entries
ending the afternoon of
Nov. 25, 2005.
For an approach to art
more in the spirit of Apollo
than of Dionysus, see
Geometry for Jews.