art 21 #3 transform & places

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I will start off by saying that Paul McCarthy is by far one of the more disturbing artists I have ever seen in my life.  I first heard my peers and my art teacher discussing an artist on art 21 whose work was just sickeningly twisted and vomit inducing. Though I am a very squeamish person I naturally was curious to see this “Monstrous work”. I try my best to keep an open mind and generally consider myself accepting but this mans art however is something I regret seeing. Mr. McCarthy’s work ranges from videos of him dressed up as disturbing characters with huge noses to an inflatable pile of feces the size of a building. I’m not saying that I think McCarthy is a terrible artist, or he lacks artistic skill, but I personally am not impressed or entertained by his peculiar art. Except for the Pinocchio balloon I didn’t read or see anything that appealed to me. As far as what McCarthy is trying to accomplish or achieve with his art is a mystery to me. I’m assuming he wants to make viewers uncomfortable and sick to their stomach but which I’m sure he does a fine job with. I suppose McCarthy also tries to be funny and make his audience laugh but I just didn’t see what could possibly have been humorous. One of his performances consisted of rolling around in ketchup inside a classroom while spectators watched him ram into walls and maim himself to the point of both him and the audience puking. One thing’s for sure, Paul McCarthy is a unique artist and it will be interesting to see how his career goes in the future.

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After Watching such an unpleasant segment featuring Paul McCarthy I decided to find an artist I really liked for the last art 21 reflections.  One particular artist had been recommended to me multiple times and it seemed like a perfect time to pursue the offer. I must say that within seconds after hearing Barry McGee speak I knew that I was going to enjoy learning about him and his work. Barry McGee is a very talented Graffiti artist and painter who’s career involves the selling his art to customers and presenting in galleries (which is what most professional artists careers consist of) and also his so called “vandalism” or public art career in which McGee tags throughout the city making incredible graffiti for the public to see and increase his ”street cred” as he called it. Though the sophisticated world of making and selling art is considered to be so different from the world of making graffiti for the public they are incredibly similar. Over the years the art of Graffiti has developed a bad reputation mainly because in most places it is technically illegal. While I believe that defacement of private property isn’t okay in some circumstances like spray-painting someone else’s home or vandalizing the white house or a memorial I don’t see anything wrong with painting a message or an image on the wall of a concrete subway station or the side of a rusty old boxcar. In these cases as long as the message isn’t disrespectful or crude the graffiti is a good thing providing something for the public to admire and discuss. Barry McGee seems to now his limits regarding Graffiti and what’s okay and not okay to post in the public and from what I saw of him, he stuck to those restrictions. The way I see it, McGee is doing the community a service of making something nice to look at free of charge to liven up the surroundings. I thoroughly admire not only McGee’s actual work but also his class and style that he makes his art with.