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John C. Welchman on Paul McCarthy’s Pirate Project
April 28th, 2010

Please join us this Wednesday, April 28 at 7pm at 3092 Fraser Street, Vancouver, for a launch of Fillip #11 and a lecture on Paul McCarthy by John C. Welchman with a reception to follow. Co-presented with the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver.

Departing from Paul McCarthy’s Pirate Project, first seen in his exhibition LaLa Land Parody Paradise (Haus der Kunst, Munich and Whitechapel, London, 2005-06), Welchman will discuss some of the wider social, political and aesthetic questions raised by the artist’s work in performance, mega-installation, drawing, and video. McCarthy engages with multiple declensions of the piratic including the inheritance of Anglo-European pirate lore, a densely associative redistribution of the pirate persona and the slapstick reconstitution of sea-bandit Americana. These and other resources are overlaid in a zoning system organized around three structures that are also locations—the house boat, the frigate and the underwater world—and then reanimated in a sizzling series of generic and performative interventions that twist and spin the semantics of the maritime buccaneer in a serio-comic centrifuge of artistic, subjective and political compulsions.

Pirate Project, Welchman argues, dwells in the distressed social algorithms lodged between events, historical records, representation, and reinvention. It is the fulfillment of McCarthy’s decade-long interest in both the historical and symbolic potency of the pirate figure, whose actions are caught up a beguiling compound of social and libidinal drives which the artist incorporates, satirizes, and recathects. The pirate regime represents a continuous destabilization and re-vectoring of the violence and desires of the body: it participates in unique forms of community formation and group action; it is subject to special kinds of economic organization; and it engenders important instances of extra-legal, counter-statist, dissidence.

About the Speaker

John Welchman is Professor of Art History in the Visual Arts Department at the University of California, San Diego and has written extensively on contemporary art. His books on art include Modernism Relocated: Towards a Cultural Studies of Visual Modernity (Allen & Unwin, 1995), Invisible Colours: A Visual History of Titles (Yale, 1997) and Art After Appropriation: Essays on Art in the 1990s (Routledge, 2001). He is editing the collected writings of Mike Kelley: the first volume, Foul Perfection: Essays and Criticism, was published with MIT Press in 2003; the second, Minor Histories, also, with MIT, arrived in Spring 2004; and the third Mike Kelley: Interviews, Conversations, and Chit-Chat, 1988–2004 with JRP|Ringier, Zurich in 2005. Welchman’s recent exhibition projects include essays for the catalogues of Mike Kelley’s Day is Done, Gagosian Gallery, New York, 2005; Incheon International Women’s Biennial, Korea, 2007; Tim Hawkinson: Mapping the Marvellous, MCA, Sydney, 2008; Andreas Hofer, Sammlung Goetz, Munich, 2009; Joseph Kosuth: Ni apparence, ni illusion, Louvre, Paris, 2009; and John Baldessari: Pure Beauty, Tate, London/LACMA, LA, 2009-10.

In the late 1980s and early 90s Welchman had a column for Artforum while also contributing to Screen, the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, and the Economist among other newspapers and journals. He has written catalogue essays for exhibitions at the Tate (London and Liverpool), Reina Sophia (Madrid), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), and many others. He is also the founder and chair of the Southern California Consortium of Art Schools (SoCCAS) and editor of its publication series, which includes Institutional Critique and After (2006), The Aesthetics of Risk (2008), and, coming soon, Black Sphinx: On the Comedic in Modern Art (2010).

Event History
2024
  1. Offprint London 2024
  2. Seattle Art Book Fair 2024
  3. New York Art Book Fair 2024
  4. Multiple Formats Art Book Fair & Symposium 2024
  5. Reading Group: A Pragmatic Response to Real Circumstances with Anne Focke and Rhiannon Vogl
  6. Means of Production: Indigenous Patterns, Forms, and Letters with Kathleen and Christopher Sleboda
2023
  1. Tokyo Art Book Fair 2023
  2. Offprint Paris Art Book Fair 2023
  3. Volume 6 Montréal Art Book Fair
  4. LA Art Book Fair 2023
  5. San Francisco Art Book Fair 2023
  6. Post-Capitalist Architecture TV
  7. Otis MFA Graphic Design Art Book Fair
  8. Acid-Free LA Art Book Market
  9. Joar Nango & David Thomas in Dialogue: Supplement 7 at the Venice Biennale of Architecture
  10. Offprint London Art Book Fair 2023
  11. Seattle Art Book Fair
  12. Multiple Formats: Contemporary Art Book Symposium & Fair
  13. Print Pomona Art Book Fair
  14. Reading Group: Can one move along a number line? With Brynn McNab
2022
  1. Offprint Paris
  2. Tokyo Art Book Fair
  3. ACID-FREE Video Catalogue
  4. Two Hot Horses at the New York Art Book Fair
  5. Andrea Fraser and Helmut Draxler: In Dialogue
  6. Performance by Guillermo Galindo and Raven Chacon
  7. Volume Montréal
  8. Anthrozoology: Cats & Dogs
  9. Prairie Art Book Fair
  10. LIT LIT (The Little Literary Fair)
  11. San Francisco Art Book Fair
  12. Otis MFA Graphic Design Arts Book Fair
  13. The Unarius Academy of Science
  14. The Age of Unarius
  15. In Dialogue: Andrea Fraser and Pope.L
  16. Launch — S T R A Y . W O R L D
  17. E.S.P. — Parallel Transmissions
  18. Now Available: Services Working Group
2021
  1. Now Available: Institutions by Artists: Volume Two
  2. Conversation — On Gaslight
  3. Vancouver Art Book Fair
  4. E.S.P. — Anthrozoology
  5. Means of Production: The Employee with Joshua Schwebel
  6. Makeready: What Makes a Book a Book?
  7. Shannon Ebner: Stray World
  8. Project Series: Ian Wilson
  9. The Services Working Group
2020
  1. Moyra Davey: Two Hot Horses
  2. Kathleen Ritter: Gaslight
  3. Penny Slinger: Exorcisms
  4. E.S.P.: New Mineral Collective
  5. Means of Production: Sound, Silence, and Process with Guillermo Galindo & Raven Chacon
  6. Online Screening: Postmodern Times
  7. Means of Production: Community and the Work of Unworking with Am Johal
2019
  1. Means of Production: (In)consequential Thinking with Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross
  2. E.S.P.: BeDevil
  3. Launch: Supplement 5: Mr. Peanut Summit
  4. E.S.P.: Ecologies
  5. Reading Group: Rebecca La Marre in Conversation with Tiziana La Melia
  6. Reading Group: The Culture Game with Patrick Cruz
  7. David Reinfurt: A *New* Program for Graphic Design
  8. E.S.P.: Visible Language Workshop
  9. Means of Production: Value Systems with Sarah Williams
  10. Stagelessness with Grupa o.k.
  11. E.S.P.: Visual Fields
2018
  1. Means of Production: On the Difficult with Jaclyn Bruneau
  2. Means of Production: Living as an Artist with Eli Bornowsky
  3. Means of Production: W.A.G.E. with Andrea Fraser
  4. Kandis WIlliams: Reproduction is Not a Metaphor
  5. Andrea Fraser: Museums, Money and Politics
  6. Means of Production: How to Make a Book with Steidl
  7. Means of Production: Photography as Tool with Winfried Heininger
  8. Listening Group: VWAM
  9. Means of Production: Research with Mercedes Eng
  10. Means of Production: Criticism with Steffanie Ling
  11. Reading Group: A History of Resistance with Grace Ndiritu
  12. Means of Production: Printing with Brick Press
  13. Reading Group: On Kathy Acker
  14. Chris Kraus on Kathy Acker
2017
  1. Reading Group: Nathan Crompton on Utopias
  2. Reading Group: Antonia Pinter
  3. Listening Group: The Red Krayola
  4. Supplement Launch: Berlin
  5. V-Girls: The Question of Manet's Olympia
  6. Hotel Theory Reader: Vancouver Launch
2016
  1. Reading Group: Zanna Gilbert
  2. Mr. Peanut Summit
  3. Reading Group: Grant Arnold
  4. Reading Group: Martine Syms
2015
  1. John C. Welchman: Joseph Kosuth's The Second Investigation in Vancouver
  2. SWARM XVI: Fillip, Punk 'til You Punk
  3. Eternal Network
2014
  1. Christopher Régimbal on Institutions by Artists
  2. Fillip Office Open House!
  3. Fillip 19 Launch and Screening
  4. Screening: The Hart of London
  5. Triple Canopy
2013
  1. Slide Shows at X Marks the Bökship
  2. Institutions by Arists Launch at Et al.
  3. Intangible Economies at Artists Space
2012
  1. Institutions by Artists
  2. Institutions by Artists: Print Centre
  3. Intangible Economies at Art Berlin Contemporary
  4. Sumi Ink Club
  5. Grouper: Sleep
  6. Robert Ashley Speaking Thru Will Holder
  7. Fillip 16: Berlin Launch
  8. Fillip 16: Toronto Launch
  9. Pa/per View Art Book Fair
  10. It's a Book, It's a Stage, It's a Public Place
  11. Destroy All Monsters Screening
  12. Fillip at ARCO Experts Forum
2011
  1. Intangible Economies
  2. Quiz Night
  3. David Horvitz: Room 129
  4. Recent Publications
  5. Of Times Recent and Distant
  6. Secondary Information: The Persistence and Absence of Criticism
2010
  1. The AAAARG Library
  2. Everything is Dangerous
  3. Fillip 12 Now Available
  4. Unter dem Motto
  5. International Chilliwack Biennial
  6. Motto Storefront: Ooga Booga
  7. Motto Storefront: Working Format
  8. Motto Storefront: Metahaven
  9. Motto Storefront: Oscar Tuazon
  10. Motto Storefront: Andjeas Ejiksson
  11. Motto Storefront: Avalanche Launch and Screening
  12. Motto Storefront: Rob Giampietro
  13. Motto Storefront: Stuart Bailey
  14. Motto Storefront
  15. John C. Welchman on Paul McCarthy’s Pirate Project
  16. David Horvitz Artist Talk
  17. Ryan Trecartin: Screening and Artist Talk
  18. Mark Manders: Window with Fake Newspapers and Traducing Ruddle
  19. Getting Something Into One's Head
  20. Fillip Review Panel: Vancouver Art Gallery’s Offsite, Anne Truitt, and Expanded Literary Practices
2009
  1. Autogestion Book Launch
  2. Antonia Hirsch at Space, London
  3. Silvia Kolbowski at Whitechapel Gallery
  4. Fillip Library and Reading Room Launch
  5. Fillip Summer Sale
  6. Corinn Gerber of Passenger Books
  7. Stockholm and Berlin Launches
  8. David Horvitz of ASDF
  9. Montréal Launch and Collaboration
  10. Issue Nine Vancouver Launch
  11. Judgment and Contemporary Art Criticism
  12. Fillip Review Panel: February 2009
2008
  1. Vancouver Launch of Two Artist Multiples
  2. The Apartment Inhabits the Fillip Studio
  3. Nick Thurston of Information as Material
  4. Rotterdam Dialogues: The Critics
  5. Fillip Review Panel: October 2008
  6. Stuart Bailey of Dexter Sinister
  7. Next: Documentary Perspectives in Contemporary Art
  8. Paul Chan Screening
  9. Issue Seven Vancouver Launch & Talk
  10. 22nd KIOSK Exhibition in Rennes
2007
  1. Fillip at castillo/corrales, Paris
  2. Fillip at the New York Art Book Fair
  3. LA Launch and Talk
  4. A History of Tokyo Art Speak
  5. Issue Five Vancouver Launch
2006
  1. New York Art Book Fair
  2. Word on the Street
  3. The Invisible Reading Room
  4. Kiosk: Modes of Multiplication
2005
  1. Fillip Issue 1 Launch
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