Paul McCarthy's 'Class Fool' Performance Revisited in Artpress Series

In the second episode of 'En tête-à-tête avec McCarthy,' Christophe Le Gac examines Paul McCarthy's 1976 performance 'Class Fool' at the University of California, San Diego. The work features the artist naked, inserting a doll's head into his rectum, consuming industrial tomato sauce, and sliding on a mix of vomit and ketchup. Dressed as a clown with a ringed collar and surrounded by dolls, McCarthy invokes childhood innocence only to violently exorcise it, drawing parallels to William Friedkin's 1973 film 'The Exorcist.' The performance also explores self-humiliation and sadomasochistic onanism. McCarthy's delirium is channeled theatrically, distinct from clinical psychosis, as Gilles Deleuze discussed in his 1980 Vincennes lectures on 'Anti-Oedipus.' The episode is part of the series tied to the exhibition 'Monsieur McCarthy, que prenez-vous dans votre thé ?' organized by Le Miroir and Théâtre Auditorium in Poitiers, in conjunction with the Rencontres Michel Foucault, which was interrupted by external circumstances. The video 'Class Fool' (30 min 29, color, sound) is in the collection of the Centre Pompidou, Paris.