Mickey Mouse

2010 - Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

Paul McCarthy

To make Mickey Mouse (2010), Paul McCarthy altered a found photograph—not of the iconic cartoon, but of a man costumed as Mickey. On his shoulders he supports an enormous false head, Mickey’s familiar face grinning with glossy eyes. The artist has marked out in heavy black the background of Cinderella’s castle. Robbed of his context, the character becomes the sole focus of the image, a subject of unusual scrutiny. Under this close examination, his torso and legs begin to seem strange—too human for his extremities—and his friendly wave starts to look less like that of a childhood hero and more like that of a politician. With McCarthy’s intervention, the famous mouse is upstaged by his own artificiality.

Known for his transgressive performance art pieces that often challenge social conventions, Paul McCarthy is undoubtedly one of the main figures in the West Coast contemporary art scene. Using different forms from pop culture as source material, McCarthy casts a critical look at American society and consumerism. With a particularly poignant sense humor, his works also investigate the intricacies of human psychology.

Colors:

• mass_culture.n.01
• mickey_mouse.n.01
• appropriation.n.03
• consumerism.n.01
• artificiality.n.01
• isolation.n.03
• americana
• architecture in art
• color photography
• comic/cartoon
• american
• abject art
• body art
• performance art
• born 1945
• american video artists
• san francisco art institute alumni
• contemporary artist
• performance and installation artist