Critical Writing Index

Paul McCarthy: Black and While Tapes: Everyone Agrees: Meetings and Failures in Meetings

by Anna Gritz

Art Monthly, Mar. 2014, no. 374, pp. 32-33

Early video artist Paul McCarthy's work from 1971-1975, known collectively as the Black and White Tapes, was shown at Space Gallery in London from January 24 to March 16, 2014. His works evoke the early days of video artistry even in this modern setting, and deal with issues of the body, the self, and materiality. McCarthy's work was shown alongside the collective Everyone Agrees' video titled False Friends, a part of a larger installation entitled Meetings and Failures in Meetings. Everyone Agrees' installation uses a situationist style and mashes old French television footage of an interview between novelist Michele Bernstein and Guy Debord and a re-staging of this interview. Both McCarthy's and Everyone Agrees' works are in black and white, situating them within the history of video art and creating an air of the iconic rather than the actively relevant.

ITEM 2014.006 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

Black and White TapesPaul McCarthy

Painting Face Down - White LinenPaul McCarthy

Whipping the Wall with PaintPaul McCarthy

Up Down Penis ShowPaul McCarthy

SpittingPaul McCarthy

Ma BellPaul McCarthy

Meetings and Failures in MeetingsEveryone Agrees (collective)

False FriendsEveryone Agrees (collective)