Dennis Hollingsworth

Papa Smurf at Hauser & Wirth

Paul McCarthy's (aka Papa Smurf) programmatic takeover of NYC continues with his Rebel Dabble Dazzle at Hauser & Wirth in Chelsea.

I saw this show when it first debuted at LA's The Box, it was and is tremendous. It was also of some minor passing interest to me that much of the pornographic aspects of this show were tucked -by and large- into the ancillary rooms of The Box; not so in Hauser & Wirth's Chelsea space. When I first walked into the Chelsea space, the first sight was of a huge projection of the central James Dean/Paul McCarthy character ejaculating on the belly and chest of a Natalie Wood look alike within the living room of the house sized set assembled within the main gallery. I pulled out my LoopCam cell phone App and debated whether to shoot that or another huge video projection of McCarthy's backside featuring his rectum, hair trimmed scrotum, chubby wrinkled penis; all within a pimply-hairy field of ass and thigh. All this, as he squeezes between his old man thighs, a huge pastry bladder of what looks like caramel pudding over the nude body of an exquisitely beautiful actress sitting (that verb is too passive, -subjected- might be a better fit) in a bathtub.

I spared you, my friends, the animated GIF but not the verbal description.

Artists who are so invested in transgression are involved in a kind of career strip tease, the boundary crossing has to be performed in finely calibrated degrees so that they don't foreclose their oeuvre in a premature ejaculation. This, McCarthy has done with panache. But still, I wonder what will follow in train? Like a drug, the thrill has to be dialed up to be able to feel it again, to make the audience feel it again.

Then again, Paul McCarthy is also on a path of emulating Walt Disney and I wonder how far he will go in this way in as much as animation and theme parks can be mounted within the art world? There is a crucial scale difference between the two realms and so for him to realize this goal, he might not be able to pack the universe of the former into the tin can of the latter. Of course, he could create his own brand of animation and film for a venue like NetFlix (notice that I didn't use the example of network TV or even HBO, since they are sun setting at different rates in our rapidly changing media landscape) or he could actually build a theme park, an Alt-Disneyland. As he continues to double down, this might be his only way out.

(Post Scripts: 1) A friend was telling me about a legal case that is being made against McCarthy by the Disney Corporation for copyright infringement. I searched the web, with no result.
2) There is a story about his Mormon heritage that should be flushed out here. I lived in Las Vegas during my high school days, and I knew many Mormons both straight laced and the renegades that we called "Jack Mormons" at the time. I wonder how much of the latter category can shine a light on McCarthy's mind and work?)

More:
"Artists are seen as one step above criminals"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/19/paul-mccarthy-snow-white-armory-show-disney_n_3462268.html
The Demented Imagineer
Paul And Damon McCarthy: 'Rebel Dabble Babble' Leaves Me Cold