Memory Mistake of the Eldridge Cleaver Pants

2008 - Sculpture (Sculpture)

Paul McCarthy

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

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. In homage to an influence in his early career, McCarthy attempted to reconstruct a pair of pants worn by Black Panther revolutionary Eldridge Cleaver in a picture that appeared in Rolling Stone magazine in the 1970s. But in the process, McCarthy misremembered their original design of the pants, which had black outer panels and white inner panels in white, and left a black shape highlighted in the crotch area. Instead, McCarthy’s reconstruction divides the pants vertically in two black and white sections. McCarthy’s mistake speaks not only of the fallibility of memory but of a certain kind of queerness that resists any categorical—“black or white”—definition. Memory Mistake ’s use of aesthetic formalism, error, subjectivity, and social history can be seen to challenge the tropes of modernism and art history.


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:



Related works sharing similar palette

o que diriam as pedras a marte?
© » KADIST

arquivo mangue

2022

o que diriam as pedras a marte? [What would the stones say to Mars?] is a sculptural work consisting of two parts by arquivo mangue...

Movement
© » KADIST

Amapola Prada

2013

In Amapola Prada’s work Movement, we see three spotlit, female bodies lying inert in a darkened room, alongside three dressed, standing figures holding long, wooden spoons...

Inspired moves: Five years of ILHAM Gallery
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Inspired moves: Five years of ILHAM Gallery | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles Kat Khalid; ILHAM Gallery February 4, 2020 By ila (2,270 words, 10-minute read) Located in Kuala Lumpur’s Golden Triangle in the heart of the CBD is ILHAM Gallery...

Supporting Artists, Discovering Talent: Jorge Pérez Talks About Collecting in 2020 - via ARTnews
© » LARRY'S LIST

“I’ve long been working to support creatives, but we’ve redoubled our efforts over recent months,” he said....

Americans for the Arts Remembers Star of Film, TV, and Stage, Angela Lansbury
© » AMERICANSFORTHEARTS

Americans for the Arts Remembers Star of Film, TV, and Stage, Angela Lansbury | Americans for the Arts Jump to navigation Americans for the Arts Arts Action Fund National Arts Marketing Project pARTnership Movement Animating Democracy Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Instagram YouTube Load Picture Home News Room Americans for the Arts Remembers Star of Film, TV, and Stage, Angela Lansbury Hello Guest | Login Americans for the Arts Remembers Star of Film, TV, and Stage, Angela Lansbury Friday, October 14, 2022 Americans for the Arts mourns the loss of beloved Artists Committee member Dame Angela Lansbury , who passed away in her Los Angeles home on October 11, 2022, at the age of 96...

Mapping Asian Arts Media: Key Findings (Singapore, Malaysia and Cambodia)
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Mapping Asian Arts Media: Key Findings (Singapore, Malaysia and Cambodia) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles March 5, 2021 By Kathy Rowland What is the state of the arts media landscape in Southeast Asia? Based on global trends, the answer seemed evident: the landscape has shrunk, and its impact on the arts ecosystem is a growing concern amongst arts writers, artists and policy makers...

“Off Stage” at M1 Contact 2018: Communicating Beyond The Stage
© » ARTS EQUATOR

"Off Stage" at M1 Contact 2018: Communicating Beyond The Stage | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles Image courtesy of M1 Contact Contemporary Dance Festival August 8, 2018 By Bernice Lee (1100 words, six-minute read) M1 Contact Contemporary Dance Festival has become a staple of the contemporary dance scene in Singapore...

Ecotone
© » KADIST

Enar de Dios Rodríguez

2022

Ecotone by Enar de Dios Rodríguez is a video work presented in six chapters, each beginning and ending with a one-sided telephone dialog with an informal, friendly and conversational tone, that leads quickly into complex philosophical subjects...

Dhuwã
© » KADIST

Sancintya Mohini Simpson

2021

Dhuwã (term used by indentured people of Natal for ‘smoke’), is a single-channel film by Sancintya Mohini Simpson that traces back to the lived experiences of indentured labourers taken from India to Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) to work on sugar plantations during the late 1800s and early 1900s...

Palestinian-American Woman Asked to Remove Veil and Face Jewelry at Art Basel
© » HYPERALLERGIC

Palestinian-American Woman Asked to Remove Veil and Face Jewelry at Art Basel Skip to content Samera Abed at Art Basel Miami Beach, where she wore an all-black outfit in a gesture of mourning for Palestinian lives lost (all photos courtesy Samera Abed) A Palestinian-American woman visiting Art Basel Miami Beach on opening day last Wednesday, December 6, was asked to remove her veil and beaded face accessory...

Los amantes (The lovers)
© » KADIST

Diana Fonseca Quiñones

2007

In Los amantes (The lovers) Diana Fonseca Quiñones uses simple, commonplace objects and experiences that she derives from daily life to develop narratives that mix reality and fiction...

Off-White Tulips
© » KADIST

Aykan Safoglu

2013

Off-White Tulips is an intimate, meditative, and tender essay-film composed as a fictional exchange between Black gay writer James Baldwin and the artist, Aykan Safoglu...

Negative Ecology
© » LENS CULTURE

Negative Ecology - Photographs by Tamaki Yoshida | Essay by Marigold Warner | LensCulture Feature Negative Ecology A visit to Hokkaido triggered Tamaki Yoshida to think deeper about the relationship between humanity and the natural world—a process that resulted in these kaleidoscopic images...

Video: meet the artists of the Young Artists’ Summer Show 2023
© » ROYAL ACADEMY

Video: meet the artists of the Young Artists' Summer Show 2023 | Blog | Royal Academy of Arts Gallery view of the Young Artists’ Summer Show 2023 at the Royal Academy of Arts, London © Royal Academy of Arts / David Parry Video: meet the artists of the Young Artists’ Summer Show 2023 Read more Become a Friend Video: meet the artists of the Young Artists’ Summer Show 2023 Published 28 July 2023 Hear from some of the artists in this year’s Young Artists’ Summer Show as they tell us the stories behind their works selected for display at the RA...

Deferral Archive #1
© » KADIST

siren eun young jung

2015

Deferral Archive is one of the archival extensions of siren eun young jung’s Yeoseong Gukgeuk Project (2008-), a decade-long ethnographic research project into the diminishing genre of Korean traditional theater known as Yeoseong Gukgeuk ...

Fantastical Paintings of Peter Ferguson Return With ‘Skip Forward When Held’
© » HIGH FRUCTOSE

Painter Peter Ferguson returns to Roq La Rue Gallery with "Skip Forward When Held," bringing his sensibility that blends notes of the Dutch Renaissance, Lovecraftian creatures, and more...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Martin Kippenberger

1989

Untitled is a work on paper by Martin Kippenberger comprised of several seemingly disparate elements: cut-out images of a group of dancers, a japanese ceramic vase, and a pair of legs, are all combined with gestural, hand-drawn traces and additional elements such as a candy wrapper from a hotel in Monte Carlo and a statistical form from a federal government office in Wiesbaden, Germany...

New York Old Master sales deliver tepid results at Christie's and Sotheby's
© » THEARTNEWSPER

New York Old Master sales deliver tepid results at Christie's and Sotheby's Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Art market news New York Old Master sales deliver tepid results at Christie's and Sotheby's Scattered seven-figure highlights failed to make up for dozens of passed lots and multiple key withdrawals Judd Tully 2 February 2024 Share Nardo di Cione, Madonna Annunciate; Archangel Gabriel (14th c.) Courtesy of Sotheby's The premier auctions among Christie’s and Sotheby’s winter sales of Old Master works in New York this week did little to counter concerns about the deteriorating market for the classics...