I AM The Great Grock

We (a.a.s.) did a performance at the Royal Standard Turner Prize Extravaganza protesting against our own inclusion in the show as an homage to The Stuckists, who protest against the Turner Prize most years (but not this year)

Here's a link to the YouTube video if the embed doesn't work
Larger photos on the a.a.s. Flickr page

Liverpool Biennial

Went to the Liverpool Biennial with Stu and met Ellie, then went to this ornate hotel where we had to pick up our packs, the artists and hotel guests mingling with much bemusement



Went to FACT which was a bit meh, although we got some amusement from Shilpa Gupta's piece where our shadows interacted with animated houses etc.

The Royal Standard was one of the recommended Independents at the Biennial, it's a really good artist run venue, in a great old blocky pub, lots of the art was nice too, including Marit Victoria Wulff Adreassen's strange little drawings and Sean Hawkridge piece, that can be seen at makes-giving-easy.com



Next was A Foundation, a massive space donated by James Moores (can you tell I've got gallery envy?). They had the New Contemporaries, Grizedale and Goshka Macuga's "Sleep of Ulro". This was a huge installation with lots of dream like elements: holes in walls with lenses to look through, mushrooms growing out of chairs, pirate hands in glass cases... you get the idea. Didn't get under my skin, but was impressive in some ways



Then met up with some others and went to St George's Hall for the speeches, that were actually held in a small hall then broadcast on a screen. Some people got given giant acupuncture needles. We got pissed on free wine.



There was a so-called "Chinese Pavillion" - we suspected they were putting the column up then taking it down repeatedly - and there was also a Hydro-electric dam made from egg shells (Ed and Ellie looking at it)



Outside there were some models of tramps on a van that had been driven around all day



(This is sounding a bit like a child's account of their Summer holidays) And then we went to see Grizedale Arts' performances, that were meant to be for a live webcast but I don't know anyone who got it to work. As we arrived back, Count Pollen was starting - Bedwyr Williams with the Numchuck Tudors (Karen Guthrie and Nina Pope), like a kind of Salem stand-up.



After making us wait about an hour, juneau/projects/ were doing their thing, in flashy embroidered (?) suits, playing songs (written by children, I believe) from their new album You Awake in a Forest



For larger versions go to my Flickr page

Paul McCarthy

Cultural Soup at Tate Liverpool

Paul McCarthy is probably the most well known performance artist in the world. He is most well known for his use of outrageous and horrific imagery in his more recent performances than for the undeniable influence he has had on modern performance and installation art. This exhibition is a comprehensive retrospective bringing together works from the early 1970's through to the late 1990's, and is one of the largest shows he has ever done.

The first thing I see (before I have even paid to enter the show) is a video of McCarthy smearing a baby doll with mayonnaise and repeating the phrase "the son begets the daddy, and the daddy begets the son" ("Cultural Soup", 1987). Little do I know that this is nothing compared to the surreal Freudian horrors yet to come.

There are four other videos in the exhibition, mixed with sculptures and installations of the sets used in the videos. There are also framed photographs documenting McCarthy's earlier performances, including some fairly shocking images of a staged performance in which McCarthy is smeared in ketchup as he gives birth to a headless doll from an oversized prosthetic vagina. Like many of his works it is deeply disturbing and yet strangely comical.

Then there are the sculptures - a man with a giant rabbit's head and disproportionately large genitals ("Spaghetti Man", 1993), a plastic figure of Pinocchio in bed ("Pinocchio Pipenose Householddilemma", 1994) and an old man trying to copulate with a hole in a barrel ("Alpine Man", 1992). Again, these are quite disturbing, but also very funny. There is a continued usage of deviant sexual practices and childhood imagery, which combined form an obviously unsettling combination.

It becomes impossible not to ask why Paul McCarthy himself is not considered to be insane, particularly when faced with videos of the artist dressed as a boxer, smeared in ketchup, punching himself around the head and masturbating ("Rocky", 1976) and laughing uncontrollably as he draws pictures of genitals and repeatedly asks "what's this?" ("Bossy Burger", 1991). The answer to this question is clear, McCarthy does not desire to perform these so-called deviant acts for pleasure, but for the sake of art. His perceived insanity is what makes his performances so interesting.

There is a piece of work that stands out as the most linear, easily understandable performance in the show and this is the film "Painter" (1995). McCarthy plays the role of a frustrated abstract expressionist who has huge hands and ears and a giant bulbous nose, which exaggerate his awkwardness. He speaks in a squeaky cartoon voice and tries to tell the viewer how to paint ("you mix the red with the blue?"). But every so often he breaks down and starts muttering himself "I can't do this anymore, fuck all painting, fuck all painting". Later on in the performance he argues with his agent about money and tries out self-harm as a way of getting public attention (by hilariously/horrifically chopping his fake hand off). This piece is obviously deriding the somewhat pretentious view that art critics had of the tormented artist, such as Pollock or De Kooning, who are admired for their neuroses as much as they are for their art.

Through the role of the deviant, the madman, and the artist, McCarthy's works reach into the gut of the human psyche and revealed our deepest and darkest desires. Sometimes horrific and often comical, these performances are as disconcerting as they are fascinating.

© The Happy Woman 2001

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Paul McCarthy at Tate Liverpool 19 October 2001 - 13 January 2002.

Tate Liverpool, Albert Dock, Liverpool. L3 4BB

T: +44 (0)151 702 7400)

www.tate.org.uk

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