Sailor’s Meat, Sailors Delight, 1975

Tubbing, 1976

During the early seventies Paul McCarthy (Salt Lake City, Utah, 1945) created a vast production of performances that seem to recall Viennese Actionism, the Grand Guignol, and the most outrageous slapstick comedies: accumulation of bodies, emphasized in their more organic and physiological dimensions, prostheses in plastic, masks, liquids and foods characterize the artist’s imagery. Generally developed almost in a state of trance and held in front of an audience that is invited to stay close to the performer, the atmosphere of these events condenses a sense of sinister humor and unleashes anxiety, psychic frustrations, and repressed sexual desires. From the very beginning, video has accompanied and documented all of his most important works.