Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Apr 2, 2016–Apr 2, 2017

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Making Faces

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During the late 1960s, many artists began to use the body—frequently their own—as an expressive medium. They refused conventional forms of painting and sculpture, instead turning themselves into their raw materials through comic play and madcap self-portraiture. Bruce Nauman’s mock-serious efforts to mold his own body and Scott Grieger’s impersonations of sculptures by well-known contemporaries, for example, spoof the role of the artist. Works by Cynthia Maughan and Hannah Wilke, meanwhile, offer feminist parodies of popular representations of women.

Using photography, film, and video in nontraditional ways, the artists whose work is included in this section borrowed the casual immediacy of snapshots, photo booths, and home movies. Art is no longer a realm of lofty values, but rather a forum for spontaneity and improvisation. At the same time, portraiture ceases to be a solemn introspective exercise, becoming instead a springboard for subversive and often humorous creative experiments.

Below is a selection of works from Making Faces.

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SAILOR’S MEAT AND SAILOR’S MEAT, EUROPE RAW AND SAILOR’S MEAT AND TUBBING, 1975, FROM COMBINATION PHOTOGRAPHS, 1970-80

Paul McCarthy (b. 1945) Sailor’s Meat and Sailor’s Meat, Europe Raw and Sailor’s Meat and Tubbing, 1975, from Combination Photographs, 1970-80. Fifteen gelatin silver and chromogenic prints; three gelatin silver prints with manila folder, fiber tipped pen, tape, ink, and paint; and four gelatin silver prints, Dimensions variable. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Contemporary Painting and Sculpture Committee and Norah Sharpe Stone 2001.138.5a–c © Paul McCarthy; courtesy the artist and Hauser Wirth & Schimmel, Los Angeles

These photographs document moments from two of Paul McCarthy’s early performances, Sailor’s Meat and Tubbing. The artist, wearing a wig and lingerie, smeared his body with ketchup and simulated copulation on a soiled bed and in a bathtub. Employing raw meat, skin cream, and bodily fluids, among other props, McCarthy delivered a pointed attack on mainstream entertainment, consumption, and convention. Although such body-based actions characterized much video and performance work of the 1970s, the spectacular and often grotesque ways in which he extended these gestures distinguished McCarthy from his contemporaries and still challenge viewers today.

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On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

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