Ms. McCarty sets out to shock, and she does, by making art about the confusion of evil and innocence and letting the confusion just float out there, unresolved and, by inference, insolvable. Her commitment to moral agnosticism has probably resulted in restricted mainstream exposure for her art, which makes the Washington Square East show particularly valuable. And the work’s virtuosic not-niceness comes as a distinct refreshment in a season crowded with pretentious and pretty.
When I started the “Poltergeist, Girls at Home” series, I was emerging from the late ’80s and early ’90s. As you know, this had been a time that was intensely concerned with identity politics. The expectations of that period were heavy. I was involved in Gran Fury, so I was very much a part of this concentration on identity, thinking about who speaks for whom, who assumes the dominant voice, and so forth. But I didn’t feel like I could keep churning out the same things. Identity politics was a catalyst in the beginning, but it’s something from which I’ve slowly moved on. Though saying that doesn’t mean it’s not there––a piece of that discussion always exists as an underlying foundation somewhere in my art.
If someone had told me at the beginning that it would go on for fifteen years, I would’ve been like, “No way—you’re out of your mind!” And if someone had told me three years before that, “You’re going to do figurative drawings,” I would’ve been just as unlikely to believe them. You know, there have been many funny little twists and turns.
When I started the “Poltergeist, Girls at Home” series, I was emerging from the late ’80s and early ’90s. As you know, this had been a time that was intensely concerned with identity politics. The expectations of that period were heavy. I was involved in Gran Fury, so I was very much a part of this concentration on identity, thinking about who speaks for whom, who assumes the dominant voice, and so forth. But I didn’t feel like I could keep churning out the same things. Identity politics was a catalyst in the beginning, but it’s something from which I’ve slowly moved on. Though saying that doesn’t mean it’s not there––a piece of that discussion always exists as an underlying foundation somewhere in my art.
If someone had told me at the beginning that it would go on for fifteen years, I would’ve been like, “No way—you’re out of your mind!” And if someone had told me three years before that, “You’re going to do figurative drawings,” I would’ve been just as unlikely to believe them. You know, there have been many funny little twists and turns.
3 comments:
Ms. McCarty sets out to shock, and she does, by making art about the confusion of evil and innocence and letting the confusion just float out there, unresolved and, by inference, insolvable. Her commitment to moral agnosticism has probably resulted in restricted mainstream exposure for her art, which makes the Washington Square East show particularly valuable. And the work’s virtuosic not-niceness comes as a distinct refreshment in a season crowded with pretentious and pretty.
www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/arts/design/19galleries-MARLENEMCCAR_RVW.html
When I started the “Poltergeist, Girls at Home” series, I was emerging from the late ’80s and early ’90s. As you know, this had been a time that was intensely concerned with identity politics. The expectations of that period were heavy. I was involved in Gran Fury, so I was very much a part of this concentration on identity, thinking about who speaks for whom, who assumes the dominant voice, and so forth. But I didn’t feel like I could keep churning out the same things. Identity politics was a catalyst in the beginning, but it’s something from which I’ve slowly moved on. Though saying that doesn’t mean it’s not there––a piece of that discussion always exists as an underlying foundation somewhere in my art.
If someone had told me at the beginning that it would go on for fifteen years, I would’ve been like, “No way—you’re out of your mind!” And if someone had told me three years before that, “You’re going to do figurative drawings,” I would’ve been just as unlikely to believe them. You know, there have been many funny little twists and turns.
When I started the “Poltergeist, Girls at Home” series, I was emerging from the late ’80s and early ’90s. As you know, this had been a time that was intensely concerned with identity politics. The expectations of that period were heavy. I was involved in Gran Fury, so I was very much a part of this concentration on identity, thinking about who speaks for whom, who assumes the dominant voice, and so forth. But I didn’t feel like I could keep churning out the same things. Identity politics was a catalyst in the beginning, but it’s something from which I’ve slowly moved on. Though saying that doesn’t mean it’s not there––a piece of that discussion always exists as an underlying foundation somewhere in my art.
If someone had told me at the beginning that it would go on for fifteen years, I would’ve been like, “No way—you’re out of your mind!” And if someone had told me three years before that, “You’re going to do figurative drawings,” I would’ve been just as unlikely to believe them. You know, there have been many funny little twists and turns.
artforum.com/words/id=26734
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