Mother Pig, Shushi Gallery, San Diego Performance

1983 - Photography (Photography)

Paul McCarthy

location: Los Angeles, California
year born: 1945
gender: male
nationality: American
home town: Salt Lake City, Utah

McCarthy’s Mother Pig performance at Shushi Gallery in 1983 was the first time he used a set, a practice which came to characterize his later works. Here, McCarthy squirts liquid out of a bottle held near his crotch onto a stuffed animal in the shape of a lion. The costuming, materials, and simulated bodily functions frequently appear in McCarthy’s work, which often disturbingly juxtaposes visceral and startling manipulation of the body with the cheerful artifacts of popular consumer culture.


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:



Scene I am Cuba
© » KADIST

Felipe Dulzaides

2006

I Am Cuba— “Soy Cuba” in Spanish; “Ya Kuba” in Russian—is a Soviet/Cuban film produced in 1964 by director Mikhail Kalatozov at Mosfilm...

Absentia
© » KADIST

Tony Oursler

2012

Continuing Oursler’s broader exploration of the moving image, Absentia is one of three micro-scale installations that incorporate small objects and tiny video projections within a miniature active proscenium...

Ongoing Time Stabbed with a Dagger
© » KADIST

Geoffrey Farmer

2009

Ongoing Time Stabbed with a Dagger was Farmer’s first kinetic sculpture that added a cinematic character to an “ever-reconfiguring play presented in real time.” The assembly of various objects and props on top of a large platform constitutes not only a work, but, to a certain extent, a show in itself...

Visalia Livestock Market, Visalia, California
© » KADIST

Sharon Lockhart

2011

Visalia Livestock Market, Visalia, California results from Lockhart’s prolonged investigation of an agricultural center and community...

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Forest Gathering N.2
© » KADIST

Gregory Crewdson

2005

Forest Gathering N.2 is part of the series of photographs Beneath the Roses (2003-2005) where anonymous townscapes, forest clearings and broad, desolate streets are revealed as sites of mystery and wonder; similarly, ostensibly banal interiors become the staging grounds for strange human scenarios...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Trisha Donnelly

2007

Untitled is a black-and-white photograph of a wave just before it breaks as seen from the distance of an overlook...

Untitled (Miller House, #02)
© » KADIST

Luisa Lambri

2002

Lambri’s careful framing in Untitled (Miller House, #02) redefines our understanding of this iconic mid-century modernist building located in Palm Springs, California...

Untitled (Joseph T. Robinson Standing at a Podium in a Room), Damaged series
© » KADIST

Lisa Oppenheim

2003

The Damaged series by Lisa Oppenheim takes a series of selected photographs from the Chicago Daily News (1902 – 1933) as its source material...

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Mickey Mouse
© » KADIST

Paul McCarthy

2010

To make Mickey Mouse (2010), Paul McCarthy altered a found photograph—not of the iconic cartoon, but of a man costumed as Mickey...

Forest Gathering N.2
© » KADIST

Gregory Crewdson

2005

Forest Gathering N.2 is part of the series of photographs Beneath the Roses (2003-2005) where anonymous townscapes, forest clearings and broad, desolate streets are revealed as sites of mystery and wonder; similarly, ostensibly banal interiors become the staging grounds for strange human scenarios...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Trisha Donnelly

2007

Untitled is a black-and-white photograph of a wave just before it breaks as seen from the distance of an overlook...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Barry McGee

Barry McGee’s Untitled is a collection of roughly fifty, framed photographs, paintings, and text pieces clustered together in corner...

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Pia Camil
© » KADIST

Pia Camil, Espectacular Cortina and more...

Phillips Drops a Last-Minute $35m Bacon Bomb on the November Sales
© » ARTMARKETMONITOR

Phillips Drops a Last-Minute $35m Bacon Bomb on the November Sales Francis Bacon, Pope with Owls, 1958 )$35-45m) Phillips announces tonight that it will offer Francis Bacon’s ‘Pope with Owls’ ($35 – 45 million) from 1958 during its New York Evening Sale of 20th Century & Contemporary Art...

JAKE! @ Betty Cuningham Gallery
© » PAINTERS' TABLE

JAKE! @ Betty Cuningham Gallery | Painters' Table Skip to main content JAKE! @ Betty Cuningham Gallery https://johnmitchellworld.wordpress.com/2020/02/19/jake/ Jake Berthot, Chapel Trail Near Alter Road, 2000, oil on panel, 26 3/8 x 26 1/8 inches (courtesy of Betty Cuningham Gallery) John Mitchell visits the exhibition JAKE! at Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York, on view through February 23, 2020...

Censorship Snapshot: Unclear Guidelines
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Censorship Snapshot: Unclear Guidelines | ArtsEquator Skip to content Artist Ngo Dinh Bao Chau shares her experience with the ambiguous censorship guidelines in Vietnam with curator Linh Le...

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Cathy (bed self-portrait)
© » KADIST

Catherine Opie

1987

Catherine Opie’s candid photograph Cathy (bed Self-portrait) (1987) shows the artist atop a bed wearing a negligee and a dildo; the latter is attached to a whip that she holds in her teeth...

Shadows V, Set of 3
© » KADIST

Charles Gaines

1980

To make his series Shadows (1980), Gaines subjected 20 potted plants to a uniform procedure...

Untitled (San Francisco)
© » KADIST

Edward Kienholz

1984

Untitled (San Francisco) was made in Idaho in 1984 and was facetiously dedicated to Henry Hopkins, the then director of the San Francisco Museum of Art who added “modern” to its name...

Untitled (Blue Chapel)
© » KADIST

Robert Therrien

1985

In No Title (Blue Chapel) Therrien has reduced the image of a chapel to a polygon...

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Mickey Mouse
© » KADIST

Paul McCarthy

2010

To make Mickey Mouse (2010), Paul McCarthy altered a found photograph—not of the iconic cartoon, but of a man costumed as Mickey...

Memory Mistake of the Eldridge Cleaver Pants
© » KADIST

Paul McCarthy

2008

Memory Mistake of the Eldridge Cleaver Pants was created for the show Paul McCarthy’s Low Life Slow Life Part 1 , held at California College of the Arts’s Wattis Institute in 2008 and curated by McCarthy himself...

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Les allégories
© » KADIST

Chloé Quenum

2017

The stained glass windows of Chloé Quenum’s Les Allégories evoke the sacred and describe the movement of a rooster in the form of patterns extracted from a wax fabric found in Benin...

Pablo Escobar’s Wife Says This Painting May Have Saved Her Life - via The New York Times
© » LARRY'S LIST

In a new book, the former wife of the Colombian drug kingpin talks about the pivotal role Salvador Dalí’s “The Dance” played in her life....

Untitled
© » KADIST

Apostolos Georgiou

2016

Untitled (2016) is characteristic of the artist’s practice...