L’INSEE vient de publier une étude montrant, chiffres à l’appui, que la période où les français sont les plus heureux, est celle de la soixantaine passée. Pendant ce temps, la SNCF, une fois n’est pas coutume, fait grève. La revendication : non à la possibilité de reculer son âge de départ à la retraite. De quoi vous pourrir les chiffres du bonheur de nos petits vieux…. Alors, pour une fois, et pour contrer la morosité ambiante, laissons la place à un sénior heureux qui a décidé de continuer à travailler dans la joie et l’allégresse. Pas de macramé ni de point de croix au programme, mais cours de théâtre antique : la tragédie. Oui, étudions ensemble « la tragédie de la vie » (Hegel) car, décidemment, « la vie ne fait pas de cadeaux » (Tragédie)….
"Et le Priainide Hektôr était ainsi traîné dans un tourbillon de poussière, et ses cheveux noirs en étaient souillés, et sa tête était ensevelie dans la poussière, cette tête autrefois si belle que Zeus livrait maintenant à l'ennemi, pour être outragée sur la terre de la patrie".*
Seulement on ne manie pas impunément la folie, on n'outrage pas un cadavre sans s'exposer, aussi. Frappé d'hubris, McCarthy est le sous le joug de la nemesis, divina ou politica.... Car la démesure est une évidence chez lui : matérielle, avec The Frigate, une coque de bateau pirate de plus de 5 mètres de haut, ou psychologique avec la profusion géniale et démoniaque d'écrans géants de la série Pirate Party. Dans cette dernière, projections et sons s'enchevêtrent dans un déchaînement qui rappelle les corps mêlés de Fresh Acconci et où l'on prend conscience des différences subtiles que prêchent Kant et Schiller sur le sublime.
Les prisonniers d'Abu Graïb, Ben Laden qui poursuit Bush qui poursuit Ben Laden, ou Bush qui s'auto-.... stimule disons (The Bush Pieces) : devenu sérieux McCarthy ? Non, que l'on se rassure. McCarthy c'est du ketchup, pas du sang. Un enfant, rêveur, un pervers polymorphe, assurément, un garçon qui a pour compagnie un lapin agrémenté d'un pénis de 12 m de long en latex (Spaghetti Man), qui s'affiche avec.... Michael Jackson (Michael Jackson White & Black) ? Ca y est, la déviance n'est, de nouveau, plus très loin. Car McCarthy virevolte. Son art ne se laisse pas prendre, comme les tourniquets de Sartre à propos de Genet. Genet d'ailleurs dont on retrouve bien sûr des traces, la beauté dans l'horreur, la volonté de se dégrader pour mieux s'habiller de lumière. Un aller-retour constant entre Dionysos et Apollon, une forme d'art, finalement, capable de donner naissance à la tragédie.
* Illiade, chant 22, Homère. Les plus pointilleux d’entre vous (la preuve, vous lisez le renvoi des astérisques) auront, à fort juste titre, noté que l’œuvre d’Homère n’est pas, en soi, une tragédie. Il n’empêche, l’épopée regorge de passages héroïquement tragiques, tels que celui précité. Merci de votre compréhension…. bande de g(r)eeks !
The “Red Scare”: the tragic fate of McCarthyism.
The INSEE recently published a study with figures that suggest French people are much happier after they turn 60. At the same time, the SNCF (French railroad) workers, as per unusual, go on strike once again, to protest a motion delaying the age of retirement. This could plummet the figures of happiness of our little old men. So, for once, and in order to block surrounding gloominess, we’ve decided to introduce an upbeat senior who’s chosen to keep working surrounded by joy and happiness. Our program does not include basket weaving or cross-stitching, but focuses, rather, on a form of antique theatre: tragedy. Let us study together the “tragedy of life” (Hegel) because, definitely, “life does not give presents” (Tragedie)….
“The dust rose from Hector as he was being dragged along, his dark hair flew all abroad, and his head once so comely was laid low on earth, for Jove had now delivered him into the hands of his foes to do him outrage in his own land”.*
That’s the way you feel as you exit a Paul McCarthy exhibition: dragged, jolted, and mistreated, like Hector’s body behind Achilles’ chariot. McCarthy keeps himself busy fooling his audience, swept away like his own blood and thunder puppets in his movies, in a whirlwind B movie tragedy.
The greatest strength in McCarthy’s work can be seen in an other version of his outrageousness, the multiplication of used medias and their interaction inside the creative process. For instance, the Pirates series allow McCarthy to explore new territories such as intimate videos hidden on an abandoned boat (Houseboat), or giant and orgiastic showing format (Caribbean Pirates); the sculpture, fully constructed, or in its model state; the deserted leftovers of performances, empty theatres, or photograph remainders; vestiges of fluids (ketchup and so on) or exhibited ritual objects (masks notably, knives).
An other example of McCarthy’s mastering of supposed chaos, his ordained disorder, is the display and the art fetishism. In his sculptural portion, we find his icons that made his reputation: Santa, Tomato Head or Bear & Rabbit. McCarthy tries to avoid glorification and recognition by staging them. Or, more precisely, by not staging them. He exhibits them in or above their own truck boxes, often dismembered, separated, incomplete, mutilated, sculptures are only ersatz of themselves. McCarthy successfully creates simulacrums of his pieces. He gives us a chance to see behind the scene and reaffirms the reification of his art. Nonetheless, he perniciously introduces an ambiguous feeling in front of his artworks. The relation to the pieces changes, alters itself and, by reducing the detachment to the works, creates an intimacy that gives birth to a higher devotion. McCarthy accesses to elevation through denial. He digs furrows of his glory -from underneath.
Abu Graïb’s prisoners, Bin Laden hunting Bush hounding Bin Laden or Bush self-stimulating (the Bush Pieces): Is McCarthy becoming serious? No, of course not. McCarthy is ketchup, not blood. Is he a child, a dreamer, a polymorphous pervert, certainly, a boy whom best friend is a rabbit with a 12-meter long latex penis (Spaghetti Man), who is a close relative of Michael Jackson (Michael Jackson White & Black)? Here we go: depravity gets close again. Because McCarthy twirls around. We cannot grab his art, as Genet seen by Sartre. Genet precisely is obviously a reference, the beauty into the horror, the wish to self-deteriorate, to dress up in light. A constant round-trip between Dionysus and Apollo, a form of art, finally, that can give birth to tragedy.
A tragic, tragicomic author, McCarthy’s work is a huge playground, a modern fairy tale that is supposed to help us switch from “immaturity to maturity” (Bettelheim). McCarthy, in a last reversal, embodies the role of the Greek god and bends down to punish us for our sins, our deviances, our buried, Hollywood, monsters. But McCarthy is magnanimous, tender like Achilles accepting Priam’s claim. He releases his prey and leaves us, lying down, defeated, wrongfully dead (as his self-portrait, Dreaming, asleep in silicon), free at last to go back and pay our retirement’s contribution…
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