WS CSSC - Drawing, Painting, Performance

Paul McCarthy (b. Salt Lake City, 1945) is one of the most provocative and influential living voices in contemporary art. Conceived by the artist himself, this oversized book represents the latest iteration of two major ongoing projects within his multidisciplinary practice: White Snow and Coach Stage Stage. Coach. In both series, archetypal American narratives are pitted against human drives and desires, and examined with trademark McCarthy wit and subversion. Informed by his own tradition of impromptu performance, scatological performative practices unfold on canvas in a charged, gestural painting style motivated by material experimentation and psychological processes. White Snow, usually a paragon of feminine virtue, is depicted as a looted, heavily made-up protagonist. Beginning as a cartoon set in 2009, the series has since evolved into a multi-platform narrative created by McCarthy himself. In the WS paintings, McCarthy re-stages moments from his WS performance and invents entirely new settings, transforming familiar characters into unfamiliar forms. Coach Stage Stage Coach is McCarthy's second long-term project, based on the film of the same name, a 1939 American western by John Ford. The Western gender is central to American male identity, and here McCarthy recasts reality using Hollywood tactics. A repeated theme of castration is conveyed through textual references scrawled on the paintings like a mantra: 'CUT OFF THE HEAD / CUT OFF THE PENIS.' Together, CSSC's paintings function as unscripted storyboards in which McCarthy reverberates between the central motif of Stage Coach and the male icons of the film industry in a series of sexual dreamscapes that form a jumping off point for a future performance. and Coach Stage Stage Coach film. Publisher: Polígrafa Editions Language: English Pages: 360 Dimensions: 40 x 8 x 28 cm