Paul McCarthy in "Transformation" - Season 5 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21

[ doors clunking ]

[ doors clunking ]

[ doors clunking ]

[ doors clunking ]

[ doors clunking ]

I kind of view these exhibitions sometimes as not 
the end of something but a beginning of some sort.  

You see them for the first time sometimes.

You know, you see them out of their context. And you

can think about them differently.
And then you start again.

[ doors clunking ]

The activity of spinning, which is part of a number of those pieces at the Whitney show, like the "Spinning Room,"

that piece was developed about the same time that I began the early spinning tapes, where I would spin.

[ dull thud ]

I'm in this building called the
Broadway building. And it's

a building that USC had had that they
gave students, graduate students.

And it was a completely empty building. And I was the only graduate student that actually took—

The rest of them stayed in a studio down by the campus. I move up to this Broadway building, which is, 

like, seven floors. And it was the induction center
for World War II and Vietnam.

And it was a seven-story building completely empty. And I had this whole building to do whatever I wanted in.

I think it's called "Face Painting - White Line."

I don't remember how the idea came to me.

You spend your time in a kind of ball of
ideas or something. And...

maybe it comes to you all at once or maybe 
you get a glimmer and then you develop an idea.

This one...

I had done-- Just prior to this, 
I'd done-- I'd whipped a wall with paint.

The paint was a combination of motor oil and paint.

[ paint drips ]

Although, I think I really wanted to paint
the whole window black.

I didn't go that far. That was 
the plan, but it didn't happen.

Ran out of paint, and that was it. I didn't go back and finish it.

The windows stayed like that for years.

And the tapes were sort of, in the beginning, were very much about me,

as the artist, just using what's ever in
the room; the architecture, the doors.

Very minimal.

With pieces, like in "Sailor's Meat," I cover my head with, like, tape or

butter or something. Like, the first thing that happens is to cover the face.

Where the other ones where I'm spinning,
it's me, Paul McCarthy, making an artwork.

You see my face. It's clear who I am. In
these other ones, the persona happens.

And the persona usually started with a
kind of mask or some sort of costume.

- One, two, three.

Hello, how are we doing today?

Wild girls.

Anything.

I was kind of a class clown. And so

there was always a sort of performative-- Doing, like, a kind of--

Making people laugh or 
something like that, you know, when I was in school.

I-I-I’ve never really equated that with 
the performance work I began to do in the '60s.

- Okay.

Okay [ clears throat ]

What!

What, I don't wanna think about you.

Just try.

Try and listen.

Try listen to what I have to say.

Don't pay much attention.

Try to stick with it.

Try to listen.

This is try to listen.

Try to move, try to think about...

Oh no, I interfered, interfered.

Try not to think.

[ mumbles indistinctly ]

The one thing I was really, as a kid-- I was 
really involved with

constructing...building,

like, huts, children's huts and kids' huts,

you know, and tree houses and underground—

Like, I spent-- That was a big part of my--I think—

I grew up where you could do that pretty easy, because there was a rural area right where we lived, so it was easy to build

huts. And there were always subdivisions being built around, 
so you could get the wood that you needed.

So there's a whole thing about 
constructing architecture, I think.

[ gargles loudly ]

'87, I got asked to do a piece on 
a cable station. And I did "Family Tyranny."

- He hasn't done what he was supposed to do.

He's been a very bad boy.

Hey, wear this, wear that, boy!

That's what you need to wear.

[ man whimpers ]

It was also at that point that I knew Mike 
Kelley but didn't know him really well.

We'd kind of met a few times. and I asked him to 
be in this piece.

I liked his work. I thought there was a connection.
So he just came to the  studio.

It was all improvised, the whole thing.

- No!
Hey boy!

Boy, boy!

[ man screams hysterically ]

I remember at the time, you know, having children 
and then seeing myself...

Almost standing, you know, in a
relationship with one--

With one of my kids
or both of them, standing...

Standing in front of them, being in the same posture and 
saying the same thing that my father had said to me.

Although it seems to be about the conditioning 
of children, it's actually more of

sort of that we are that. We are conditioned into our reality.

I mean, it was kind of like struggling and thinking about those things. And then this piece happened.

And then just sort of extrapolating that into who I am and, you know, breaking out of a conditioned attitude.

- Calm down, here. Calm down.

- Time to go to school, Dad.

- No son, don't go to school.

Don't leave your dad here alone.

[ Damon McCarthy ] My Dad and I had an ongoing relationship since  I was a kid. We always did things together,  

from playing baseball to skiing to 
building the house to helping him,  

as a kid, kind of playing and making art when he 
was in the garage. It was kind of like I always  

felt like that was a part of my world. So

it was not a-- there's never a moment where we feel like it's not

working together as much as we're doing 
something together. And it was kind of like,

seemed right that we were supposed to 
kind of create this madhouse thing.

[ hysterical screaming ]

- Stop it! Stop it!

- Oh yes!

[ laughs menacingly ]

- Oh yes!

[ Damon ] Since I was kind of young, I had, like, a 
fascination with the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride.

I talked to him about making a pirate movie 
and kind of turning this ride into a movie.  

- Captain!

- Yes, sir.

- Aboard!
- Aye-aye, sir!

[ DAMON ] Then one thing kind of turned into another. And 
then we started sitting down and talking about it,  

and it unfolded into something that was kind 
of more than what I thought it would do.

It always seemed like what Hollywood was trying 
to do with a movie but then could never do it.

[ gaudy laughter ]

[ Paul McCarthy ] You know, as artists,
you think in terms of space,  

like an object goes in a space. so it's much more 
likely for me to think in terms of the setting  

for the video as a space
where it's presented.

I don't think single channel,
where you sit in face it.

In these settings, you ended up with 20 
channels in the same room. They become like big paintings.

Sometimes I think this is closer to 
painting than it is to filmmaking, which thinks narrative,

where the painting constructs maybe a
narrative in the frame,

but it's a different type of narrative than
what we think of as film narrative.

And that's the difference between making art and making entertainment, is I don't care.

It's not the same situation. It's the explorations of ideas.

[ eerie murmuring ]

I’m not trying to 
satisfy an audience.

And that's where this thing where art
is always equated with this audience--

and what is your responsibility to the audience? My responsibility is to the ideas.

Some of it really is just about letting something go and then finding something in there.

And then some of it is really about directing it and knowing pretty long ahead that that's what's gonna happen.

It's, the process of making a sculpture begins to be 
interesting and the obsession to get it right.

- That's not bad.
- Okay.

- Sure.
- If I'm repairing the sound.

[ hammer bangs ]

- Oh, just kidding!
- Yeah, we attached it.

- That's right, but broke.
- Yeah, that wasn't polluted.

- That's okay, that's totally okay.
- Okay.

[ PAUL MCCARTHY ] I’m actually
interested in Greek sculpture,

this notion that the god is endowed
in the sculpture itself.

Sculpting not for the point of making a shape but for the point of, like-- like, as if you're stroking an arm.

I was asked to 
do a piece for the World's Fair.

and I came up with this idea of making inflatable 
80-foot Pinocchio sitting on a stack of books.

Instead of having a Pinocchio head, 
I put a cube head on it.

I was really into the aesthetic of
this vinyl full of air.

I mean, there is something about being able to make this giant object that is ephemeral in a way and that...

it blows up. It's full of air.

Kind of exists there for a short period of time and then kind of makes an image for people and then is gone.

A lot of what goes 
on is a lot about the practice of making art.

My work seems to be about tearing down,
opening up conventions, I guess.

These individuals that affect the world, in one way,
they're real. In another way,

I saw them like Mickey Mouse or Santa Claus,
like some sort of fabricated sculpture.

Pieces recycle into other pieces. Pieces
get used 'cause they're in the studio.

Like the Hummels go on for years.
The Hummel comes from Bavaria.

It's a ceramic figurine that's mass 
produced. Lots of people collect them.

Some people had sent me
Hummels over the years.

So I would end up with these Hummels.
And one day, I just decided to make one.

And then they kind of 
clicked as a forum that I would

sort of just say, "Make this Hummel," or, "Let's 
make this Hummel." And then it

would start forming. And then it would 
begin to abstract.

It just keeps going. You know, there's always one or two 
or three or four or five going on,  

you know, at different scales.

I’m not really, at this point, going out of my way to go pick ones. it doesn't seem necessary.

Like, any of them will do.

Something to act on, something to...

to alter and to shift, like this
way of working through ideas.

- Question is how far to--
- Smash it in there?

- Just take that sucker.

- Like that?

- I think that's maybe too long.

- Yeah, but we pound it all the way in.

[ MCCARTHY ] Also what's going on with the "Hummel" is the nature of the sculpture itself, which is

this idea of purity and cleanliness.

I mean, I kind of 
believe that hygiene is the religion of fascism.

- I think we just do it.
- Just do it

- You're gonna have to hold the head,
but just think.

[ hammer taps ]

[ hammer taps ]

[ MCCARTHY ] Between two people and myself, the sculpting may go on for weeks.

And it's always about adjusting this, adjusting that, adjusting this.

- More?

[ hammer taps ]

- No.

I don't think so, I think I'm hitting foam.

- Well, keep going then.

[ hammer taps ]

It's very 
spontaneous. And I know that there are people watching.

And the fact that they're watching 
is a reason to do it.

And it's kind of like that moment where, yeah, let's see.

All this time has gone into 
something, and then you destroy it.

You destroy the effort.

- Okay.

[ MCCARTHY ] I can't tell you why.

The why and the answers to why it's
being done, it's in the work.

It’s not in what we say here, because...

And certainly not what we say here when we try to answer a question in 20 minutes to something that

is intentionally and purposefully entangled.

[ electronic music ]

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