Paul McCarthy

Biography

While still a student, Paul McCarthy threw himself out of a second floor window in a performance/action, emulating Yves Klein's legendary "Leap into the Void." McCarthy was an influential figure in the Southern California art and performance scene for decades before achieving international recognition. His performance work in the late 1970s explored areas of Dionysian and shamanistic initiation rituals, as well as the body and sexuality. The intensity of these performances, which often included the graphic depiction of taboo subjects, eventually led to his use of video and installation as primary media.  Mining the depths of the family and childhood via kitsch and pop cultural detritus, the body and sexuality, and an often outrageous theatricality, McCarthy's works inhabit a violent landscape of dysfunction and trauma. In many of his works, he adopts a performance persona that appears crazed, witch-like, or infantile. McCarthy's works often involve liquids, from bodily fluids to paint; one performance involved mixing his own blood with food, an obsessive gesture that is simulated in Family Tyranny.  In the late 1980s, McCarthy began using film and television sets as elements in video/performance installations. Often these elaborate fabrications involved the restaging of culturally-charged myths and icons, such as Heidi and Pinocchio, in the context of family psychodramas, Hollywood genres, and mass media.

Paul McCarthy Movies & TV-shows on Netflix

Movies with Paul McCarthy

Coach Stage Stage Coach

Feb 15, 2019

Heidi: Midlife Crisis Trauma Center and Negative Media-Engram Abreaction Release Zone

Oct 30, 1992

Sauce

Feb 6, 1974

The Art Foundry

Apr 25, 2014

Family Tyranny (Modeling and Molding)

Jan 1, 1987

Class Fool

Jan 1, 1976

Becoming Paul McCarthy

Oct 27, 2020

Cultural Soup

Jan 1, 1987

Black and White Tapes

Jul 7, 1975

Sailor's Meat (Sailor's Delight)

Apr 28, 1975

Paul McCarthy: Destruction of the Body

Feb 28, 2001