Paul McCarthy
A&E, Head Stack, Santa Anita session
A&E, Head Stack, Santa Anita session
$500,000
2021
Pencil, pastel, charcoal, oil stick, plastic cap, and tape on paper
277.5 x 182.9 x 1 cm / 109 ¼ x 72 x ⅜ in
299.1 x 204.5 x 8.9 cm / 117 ¾ x 80 ½ x 3 ½ in (framed)
A monumental collage of different materials and media, ‘A&E, Head Stack, Santa Anita session’ (2021) embodies, on multiple levels, Paul McCarthy’s profoundly radical and complex practice. A pivotal work from McCarthy’s new series of large-scale A&E Drawings, ‘A&E, Head Stack, Santa Anita session’ confronts the complex mechanisms of power, politics, desire and history. An initialism for Adolf (Hitler) & Eva (Braun), Adam & Eve, and Arts & Entertainment, A&E is a multi-disciplinary series that evolved out of the artist’s film project ‘NV Night Vater’, which was loosely based on Liliana Cavani’s sadomasochistic erotic drama ‘The Night Porter’ (1974).
‘The question of cruelty in art, the representation of cruelty in art, may be a simplistic view that art is a mirror of life, a mirror of what is, and this includes violence. It’s the cracked mirror; the crack is to let one know its language. The crack is the caricature.’—Paul McCarthy [1]
McCarthy’s original ‘NV Night Vater’ features a deranged cast of characters, including McCarthy as Max, a mafioso-like Hollywood executive, and German actor Lilith Stangenberg in the role of Lucia, the two central characters of ‘The Night Porter.’ While working on ‘NV Night Vater,’ McCarthy and Stangenberg agreed to continue to explore the challenging themes and their characters’ depraved artistic collaboration in A&E, which features nefarious male figures culled from Hollywood, fairy tales, soap operas, comic books, and contemporary politics. Enticingly mesmerizing and unorthodox, ‘A&E, Head Stack, Santa Anita session’ is an uncannily vibrant demythologization of contemporary life and art.
The new A&E Drawings were created at the artist’s Santa Anita studio during improvised performances between McCarthy and Stangenberg while in character as Adolf and Eva, the former embodying predatory toxic masculinity and buffoonery while the latter simultaneously played lover, mother and daughter. As the artist has stated: ‘It’s always been about the process of improvisation, the creation of the unexpected action and dialogue.’ [2]
Emphasizing the importance of the A&E Drawings both within his oeuvre and as part of his creative process, McCarthy explained: ‘The drawing and painting sessions are part of a trajectory in my work going back to the ‘60s, of drawing and painting as action or performance. In the drawing/painting sessions of A&E, we were ‘going into’ a realm, a world as both ourselves and as characters. … I went in and out of drawing. The drawings came out of the arena we entered, ‘the other world.’ [3]
A startling work from this ‘other world,’ ‘A&E, Head Stack, Santa Anita session’ is part of a series that is shocking, humorous and sardonic; hallmark characteristics of McCarthy’s work. Yet the artist’s provocative critique of violence, celebrity and politics is rooted in a collaborative process built on trust and dialogue. ‘A&E, Head Stack, Santa Anita session’ is at once drawing, collage, performance script, physical record of an ephemeral project, creation of a fictional character, and perhaps, above all, emblem of McCarthy’s subversion of traditional media and work processes.
About the artist
Paul McCarthy is widely considered to be one of the most influential and groundbreaking contemporary American artists. Born in 1945, and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, he first established a multi-faceted artistic practice, which sought to break the limitations of painting by using unorthodox materials such as bodily fluids and food. He has since become known for visceral, often hauntingly humorous work in a variety of mediums—from performance, photography, film and video, to sculpture, drawing and painting.
All artwork images © Paul McCarthy. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen
1.) Paul McCarthy quoted in Aram Moshayedi, Connie Butler, ‘Paul McCarthy. Head Space. Drawings 1963-2019,’ New York: Hammer Museum, DelMonico Books, Prestel, 2002, p. 185.
2.) Paul McCarthy quoted in ‘Paul McCarthy. A&E Drawing Session, Santa Anita,’ https://www.hauserwirth.com/hauser-wirth-exhibitions/29241-paul-mccarthy-ae-drawing-session-santa-anita/ (accessed September 1, 2022).
3.) Paul McCarthy quoted in in ‘Paul McCarthy. A&E Drawings,’ https://vip-hauserwirth.com/gallery-exhibitions/paul-mccarthy-ae-drawingsae-drawing-session-2021with-lilith-stangenberg/ (accessed September 1, 2022).