Monday, November 30, 2015

Paul McCarthy at Schinkel Pavillon

Paul McCarthy at Schinkel Pavillon
(link)

McCarthy the great desublimator, and of late the great literalizer. Literalization is a form of desublimation. And we watch him objectify someone, literally turn someone into an object, Elyse Poppers or himself. Unusual for McCarthy it is clean, clinical and calculated. It feels awful. This process, usually huge on billboards and bus stations showing half-naked young things, should entail all the fun of commodities, should replace the desire with an object that can be purchased, replace that desire. Instead here is cruel, useless and wasted. The world has little use for naked old man on table. Watch the procession of Poppers' body become not hers, the literal object consumable.