Commodity and Abjection

SSStttooonnnyyy BBBrrrooooookkk UUUnnniiivvveeerrrsssiiitttyyy The official electronic file of this thesis or dissertation is maintained by the University Libraries on behalf of The Graduate School at Stony Brook University. ©©© AAAllllll RRRiiiggghhhtttsss RRReeessseeerrrvvveeeddd bbbyyy AAAuuuttthhhooorrr... Commodity and Abjection: A Psycho-social Investigation of Pop Culture Imagery in the Artwork of Paul McCarthy A Dissertation Presented by Robert Rand Shane to The Graduate School in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Art History and Criticism Stony Brook University May 2009 Copyright by Robert Rand Shane 2009 Stony Brook University The Graduate School Robert Rand Shane We, the dissertation committee for the above candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, Hereby recommend acceptance of this dissertation. Donald B. Kuspit --- Advisor Distinguished Professor of Art History and Philosophy, Art Department Michele H. Bogart --- Chairperson of Defense Professor of Art History, Art Department Anita Moskowitz Professor of Art History and Chairperson, Art Department Steven Poser Psychoanalysis Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies, New York, NY This dissertation is accepted by the Graduate School Lawrence Martin Dean of the Graduate School ii Abstract of the Dissertation Commodity and Abjection: A psycho-social investigation of pop culture imagery in the artwork of Paul McCarthy by Robert Rand Shane Doctor of Philosophy in Art History and Criticism Stony Brook University 2009 American artist Paul McCarthy (born 1945) is most well known for his live and video-taped performances in which he plays with mass-produced food products such as ketchup or chocolate syrup. In these scatological works McCarthy parodies characters from popular culture, such as Disney’s Pinocchio, while simultaneously referencing family figures from his childhood. Attacks on popular culture and on personal family figures are two themes that appear separately in the work of a number of contemporary artists, but McCarthy’s work is unique because of the connection he draws between the two. In his work he offers his own childhood experiences as proof of his implicit assertion that consumer culture is a totalizing and homogenizing force which pervades the intimacies of family life and identity. In this dissertation I present a selection of iii McCarthy’s performances and kinetic sculptures as case studies to argue that the rituals of his work are an attempt to expel those consumerist elements that on the one hand form his identity, and yet on the other feel completely alien to him. I use both contemporary psychoanalytic and Marxist theories in this dissertation in order to analyze McCarthy’s psychical response to consumer culture. McCarthy’s work draws these two discourses together in a process that I call commodity abjection. I argue that his relationship to popular culture is analogous to the process of abjection as elaborated by psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva. Kristeva claimed that abjection is an interminable process whereby the subject attempts to establish a hermetic border against those materials which confuse its identity. In establishing one’s subjectivity against abject materials, the subject must expel things that have become part of himself. Television and entertainment culture are the locus of McCarthy’s childhood memories and cultural values, and to his consternation they form the core of his identity. I show that McCarthy’s irreverent and puerile use of food products and imagery from popular culture is an attempt to abject those elements. iv For Dr. Lucy Bowditch, my teacher, mentor, and friend, who opened up the world of contemporary art criticism to me. I hope that I have made you proud. Table of Contents List of Figures………………………………………….……………………………….ix Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………….xii Introduction…………………………………………………………………………......1 McCarthy within the Context of Contemporary Art…………………….…….....2 Review of the Literature…………………………………………….………........3 Commodity Abjection………………………………………………….……….15 Chapter 1: Video as Cultural Signifier and Cultural Critique in Sailor’s Meat/Sailor’s Delight and Tubbing (1975)………… ………………….….......22 McCarthy’s Shift from “Actions” to Video……………………………….…….24 Video as Cultural Signifier in Sailor’s Meat/Sailor’s Delight and Tubbing…………………………………………………………………..30 Pop Imagery and Food Products in Sailor’s Meat/Sailor’s Delight and Tubbing…. ………………………………………………………....35 Chapter 2: Birth and Commodity Culture in Contemporary Cure All (1979) and Baby Boy, Baby Magic (1982)……………………………………….….…52 Parody of the World of the Father: Contemporary Cure All (1979)………….…52 Ketchup as Symbol of Erotic Violence and Pop Commodity……..……..54 Imagining Mother in Baby Boy, Baby Magic (1982)……………….……….…...63 Rescripting Mother’s Mockery………….………………………….……64 Infantile Perception of Mother in Baby Boy, Baby Magic……….….…...66 Commodity Abjection and the Doll in Baby Boy, Baby Magic…….…...71 vi Chapter 3: Sexual Automatons: The Garden (1992) and Cultural Gothic (1992)…...82 Nature and Suburbia: The Garden (1992)………………………..……………...84 The Shift from Nature to Simulation…………..………………………...88 Culture as Second Nature…………………..………………….…………90 Nature and the Cyborg…………………...…………..…………………..93 Cultural Gothic (1992)…………………………………………………………..95 Reification of Sexuality in Consumer Culture……………………….………….98 Chapter 4: The Abject Collapse of the Animate and the Inanimate in Pinocchio Pipenose Householddilemma (1994)…………….………….…..…116 Pinocchio Pipenose Householddilemma (1994)………..………………………116 Visceral Defense against Cultural Conditioning………..………………………118 Consumer Masks and Bodily Ritual…………………..………………………..121 Abjection and Architecture………..…………………………………………....125 Costumes and Conformity: Role of Audience in Pinocchio Pipenose Householddilemma…………..………………………………………....127 The Waning of Affect and Schizoid Culture…………………………………...129 Chapter 5: Painter (1995) as Self-Portrait and Self Loathing ………….…………..144 Painter (1995)………………………………………..………………………....145 Parodies of the Father……………………………………..……………………147 Parody of the Father……………………………………...……………..148 Parody of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art………………………..151 Perversion and the Art Market………………..………………………………..155 vii Épater le bourgeois: Suburbia and Filth………………………………………..159 Cynicism and Self Loathing………………………………………………..…..162 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………...…...171 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………...174 Sources on Paul McCarthy………………………....…………………………...174 Sources on Modern and Contemporary Art…………………………………….182 Works of Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Other Methodological Sources……184 viii List of Figures Fig 1.1 Sailor’s Meat/Sailor’s Delight, 1975, performance/video tape, Pasedena, CA... 43 Fig. 1.2 Tubbing, 1975, performance/video tape, Pasedena, CA……………………….. 44 Fig. 1.3 “Plaster your head and one arm into a wall,” 1973, performance, Pasedena, CA………………………………………………………………………………. 45 Fig 1.4 Split---, 1974, video, s/w | b/w, 2:42 min………………………………………..46 Fig 1.5 Mona Hatoum, Pull, 1995, Künstlerwerkstatt, Munich, 2-hour live work with video………………………………………………………………………..47 Fig 1.6 Cindy Sherman, untitled #11, 1978, silver gelatin print, 8 x 10 in……………...48 Fig 1.7 Marilyn Monroe, 1975, performance/photographic series, Los Angeles, CA……………………………………………………………………………….49 Fig 1.8 Andy Warhol Gold Marilyn, 1962, 7’x4’9,”silkscreen and oil on canvas, Museum of Modern Art, New York……………………………………….…….50 Fig 1.9 Carolee Schneemann, Meat Joy, 1964, Paris……………..………………..……51 Fig. 2.1 Contemporary Cure All, 1979, performances/video tape, Los Angeles, CA; with Susan Amon, John Duncan and Ronald Benom……………………………77 Fig. 2.2 Karen Ketchup Dream, 1975, performance/video tape, Pasedena, CA………...78 Fig. 2.3 Grand Pop, 1977, Performance, videotape, Los Angeles………………………79 Fig. 2.4 Baby Boy, Baby Magic, 1982, performance, Al’s Bar, Los Angeles, CA………80 Fig. 2.5 Mooning, 1973, performance/video tape, Los Angeles, CA……………………81 Fig. 3.1 The Garden, 1992, wood, fiberglass, motors, latex rubber, foam rubber, wigs, clothing, artificial turf, rocks and trees, 30 x 20 x 22 feet. Collection of Jeffrey Deitch, New York, NY………………………………………………102 Fig. 3.2 detail of The Garden, 1992, showing figure and mechanical motor in tree…...103 Fig. 3.3 Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, April 1970, Black basalt and limestone rocks and earth, length 1,500ft, Great Salt Lake, Utah…………………………104 ix Fig. 3.4 Mountain Bowling, 1969-1970, performance, Salt Lake City, Utah, bowling ball…………………………………………………………………….105 Fig. 3.5 Making a Window Where There Is None, 1970, Los Angeles, CA……………106 Fig. 3.6 Cotton Door, 1971, performance/video tape, Los Angeles, CA………………107 Fig. 3.7 Cultural Gothic, 1992, metal, motors, fiberglass, clothing, compressor, urethane rubber, stuffed goat, 96 x 96 x 96 inches. Collection of the Rubell Family, Miami, FL……………………………………………………………...108 Fig. 3.8 Cultural Soup, 1987, video, 6:59min………………………………………….109 Fig. 3.9 Family Tyranny, 1987, video, 8:18min…..........................................................110 Fig. 3.10 Fear of Mannequins, 1971, photographic series, Hollywood Boulevard…….111 Fig. 3.11 Fear of Mannequins, 1971, photographic series, Hollywood Boulevard…….112 Fig. 3.12 Eugene Atget, Magasin, Avenue des Gobelins, 1925, Museum of Modern Art………………………………………………………………………………113 Fig. 3.13 Barbara Morgan, Macy's Window, 1939, natural montage, Willard and Barbara Morgan Archives………………………………………………………114 Fig. 3.14 Marcel Duchamp, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelor’s,

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