Paul McCarthy's Ketchup Performance Revisited in Mini-Series

Artpress launches a six-episode mini-series titled 'En tête-à-tête avec McCarthy,' curated by Christophe Le Gac, focusing on six films by Paul McCarthy. The first episode features 'Heinz Ketchup Sauce' (1974), a 17-minute 29-second video performance. The series coincides with the exhibition 'Monsieur McCarthy, que prenez-vous dans votre thé ?' at Le Miroir and Théâtre auditorium (Tap) in Poitiers, which opened on October 6 but was interrupted by a new lockdown. The screenings were part of the Rencontres Michel Foucault event 'C'est un scandale.' In the film, McCarthy, nude, covers himself with ketchup, exploring themes of the artist as medium, consumption under 'schizophrenic capitalism,' and aesthetic pleasure in the abject. The work, recorded on VHS, shows a calm artist spitting out the bottle cap. McCarthy earned a Master's from the University of Southern California (USC) in the early 1970s, where he studied film, performance, and art.