subversive philosophy: Invasion of new premises

Paul Mccarthy

This is the first of what will hopefully be many blog posts on my shiny new Macbook, otherwise known as Magpie.

This post will be shortish and sweetish too.
This last week has been a bugger for work, it’s not for want of inspiration, if anything I have too many ideas rolling around my head and I need to let them free. My downfall is that I try to ‘over organise’ and then daunt myself with the lists I build rather just getting on and doing it. It isn’t even real organisation because when I comes down to it I still hold abysmal time keeping skills and find the minutes running out. Not only this but with the lack of inspiration to be found in our course studio due to so many absentees, i have chosen to invade the space of the lovely Fashion Students which is nice, to not feel so solitary for once.

So as of this week I devised my ‘To do list” which in theory may seem like nothing but for me to tackle it and do what I’m meant to without procrastinating will mean everything. I’m broke after spending my last few pennies on My new Diana F+ alongside 2 lenses [Oh yes yes yes] and 5 new art books inevitably that will be featured here, so I suppose I will just be staying in a lot from now on. That doesn’t scare me, I genuinely do want to just work, I just wish I could be like other artists I know who have the ability to get the engine up and running [insert forlorn face here] I am frustrated.

Anywho after this post will follow some work posts, finally. But for now this is my consideration of the work of Paul Mccarthy.

In one small word.. Vile.

The films, and their stills make for my feeling of physical sickness, I’m not entirely sure whether I hate it or just feel a small aesthetic dislike to it, thus posing a question of why I would write an entire post about his work? Well as much as I don’t revel in the feeling of physical discomfort at the sight of something in this circumstance I find it slightly fascinating. Fascinating because of the works ability to actually cultivate such a feeling in me that no other art has managed. Although Mccarthy’s work bears little beauty that deep rooted anti aesthetic is most relevant to my own work. Through the use of subject matter, materials and compositions his performance art creates a sense of claustrophobia, putrid acts, environments and characters close us into dark realities. The situations may seem surreal but his work stands as a symbol for truer, darker political realities that exist in our day-to-day lives.

The discomposure of the physical acts here is something I seek to translate into the physicality of my own sculptures.

Equally important is this element of performance is crucial to my researching his work, as the further I go on the more emphasis I feel on this project revolving not around the physicality of the objects themselves but the involvement of them in my own reality.

Here are a few examples of his work...