LaLa Land
Well, it’s got
sodomy, mutilation, mucous, dismemberment, cock-eyed pirates, rape,
bile, bestiality, swashbuckling, swastikas, pornography, excellent
excrement and a gently dreaming kinetic pig, blissfully unaware of it’s
own surroundings. It’s visceral, abject, vile, mutinous, libidinous,
violent, hideous, disturbing, macabre and gloriously carnivalesque.
It’s Paul McCarthy’s LaLa Land Parody Paradise at Whitechapel Art
Gallery and an absolute treat for the whole family.
Exactly wrong.
That’s to say that despite the unrelenting splatter matter of the
subjects, it fails to truly incite guttural repulsion, or inspire
vomiting, or cause the instantaneous and irreversible implosion of
morality itself. Instead, this scentless surrealism bluntly bludgeons
the zenith of American artifice. No, not the integrity of the Bush
administration, the wonderland of Walt Disney.
Not that every
exhibit pertains to this singular ideology. Much of the performances
screened in the peepshow-like auditorium or the older works in the
upper galleries are as much an affront to masculinity as they are to
artifice. As vestiges of beguilement presented on under whelmed
pedestals – building blocks, trestles and unpainted plinths – it feels
more like the prop studio for Brain Dead Pirates, than it does the
clinical cube of a glacial gallery.
I like the
pirates the best. This probably partly because they’re newer to me, but
also because they’re just so lovable. The robbing, the raping, the
cutlass brandishing, bubonic barnacle blistering, murderous scoundrels.
Aaarrrrhh. If these qualities don’t epitomise charisma to you, then
just think of them as pioneers with Imperialist zeal. Or imagine them
as the mutated cousins of Disney merchandise, or remodelled as
ludicrously oversized corporate mascot costumes, swamping the shopping
malls of America. Or more locally, notice how alike their exaggerated
panto hell expressions resemble our native seaside hero and wife
beater, Mr. Punch. Menacing puppetry is surely at work. Right
horrorshow.
Pig Island
Marquette (2004) is probably the work I spent the most time looking at.
Not because I champion bestiality as a point of personal agenda, but
because it contains an uncharacteristic amount of detail. A charcoal
black island chock full of stranded souvenir-shop-like buccaneers with
nothing but pigs for company floats ominously without their ship in
sight. McCarthy reclaims his often low-tech aesthetic by plonking
plates atop palm tree trunks, whilst this grotesque vision incorporates
as great a number of lewd acts as probable. Stopping short only of
cannibalism. But then there are pigs there too.
Island hopping
happens beyond the gallery too. On entry you’re handed a treasure map.
Actually, it’s less of a treasure map and more of a slickly designed
gallery guide to the show’s finale – Caribbean Pirates – at the other
end of Brick Lane. On my walk there I dip into my bag to retrieve my
notebook. By unhappy accident it has been soiled by the slurry of spilt
onion gravy, now clogging my fingernails and twisting the page corners
into mutated curls. Domestic mutiny, no doubt.
I arrive at a
battered door peeling with flakes of paint, crumbling concrete, cement
dust and debris everywhere. This is the entrance to a disused and near
dilapidated warehouse - as well as the raging, fetid antithesis of
Walt’s World. Perfect. Originated from a conversation between artist
and son about the Pirates Of The Caribbean ride at Disneyland, this is
a four-part subversion of Paradise from the original amusement park. Is
it amusing? Well, it reiterates the themes of marauders plundering
political and personal invasions among life-size houseboats, galleons,
and grotty Santa’s grottos, whilst shore whores are pillaged
mercilessly on projector screens. So again, the mock shock of parody
only spawns psychological repulsion if taken seriously. And how can you
take it seriously?
Nick West is the
Art editor of For/Against, Paul McCarthy's 'LaLa
Land Parody Paradise' was at the Whitechapel Art Gallery from October
2005 to January 2006.
© For/Against 2007