'An Idealistic Utopian Thought': Paul McCarthy and the Spaces of Transmission

Abstract

In 1974, visitors to the Newspace Gallery on Melrose Avenue experienced a studio tour very different from the one tourists might have encountered just a few blocks west at Paramount Studios.1 Viewers passed through a dimly lit room into a dark space illuminated by two black-and-white television monitors on tall stands. The video shown on the monitors was Paul McCarthy's Meat Cake #5, in which the artist, wearing a black dress and alternating wigs, can be seen covering himself with combinations of margarine, minced meat, mayonnaise, and ketchup.2 A black plastic curtain hanging over the rear wall of the gallery concealed a door leading to an adjacent room. The performance on the monitors was, in fact, taking place in that room, and viewers who realised this could pass back-and-forth between the two spaces. In contrast to the first room, the back room-turned-soundstage was brightly lit and redolent with the smells of ketchup, mayonnaise, and margarine, condiments that were quickly becoming mainstays of McCarthy's visceral performances.3