Pat McCarthy – Brick by Brick au FRAC PACA

En direct de l’exposition Brick by Brick de Pat McCarthy au Fond Régional d’Art Contemporain de Provence Côte d’Azur (FRAC PACA) du 22 avril au 5 juin 2016 sous le Commissariat de Laura Morsch-Kihn.

Artiste : Pat McCarthy, né en 1987. Vit et travaille à New York.

Dans le cadre du festival Rebel Rebel, Laura Morsch-Kihn invite l’artiste New-Yorkais Pat McCarthy a investir les murs du FRAC PACA pour Brick by Brick, une exposition personnelle. La venue en France de Pat McCarthy, artiste associé à des pratiques artistiques en marges, qui pratique un art-action fortement en lien avec les populations, est symbolique car elle se fait à un moment où l’art est accusé d’être élitiste, de pratiquer un entre-soi à outrance.
L’œuvre de Pat McCarthy, par son caractère itinérant et spontané, au caractère urbain, même si elle est assimilée à l’image de la contre-culture notamment portée par Allen Ginsberg, n’est pas sans rappeler la « poésie action » pratiquée en France. Sillonnant la ville sur sa mobylette ou avec son chariot, il nous fait penser à Jacques Réda, à des poètes comme André Hardellet ou René Fallet grands arpenteurs des périphéries urbaines, à ces poètes de l’OULIPO qui mixent, pour notre plus grand plaisir, images et mots.
Pour Pat McCarthy, l’art naît de rencontres, et de situations improvisées que seul le hasard sait distiller. Loin des sphères éthérées, l’art prend librement position dans les rues qui deviennent pour l’occasion un incroyable terrain de jeu.
Toute rencontre est pour cet artiste-poète l’amorce d’un pur moment où, le temps se suspend pour s’ouvrir sur un autre rapport à l’autre. Il y a une forme de magie dans la création de ces instants. Une simple photocopieuse devient un instrument fantastique, capable de donner le sourire. Cet élan Pat McCarthy le communique par des fanzines produits à la photocopieuse et qui ont ce rendu de moments pris sur le vif où les personnes rencontrées ont donné un peu d’eux-mêmes.
Laura Morsch-Kihn nous fait rencontrer un artiste qui nous montre que l’art naît avant tout du regard que l’on porte sur toute chose. Le fanzine exprime ce glissement qui fait qu’au fil des pages les instantanés révèlent et fixent des moments de poésie. L’art est d’abord une disponibilité à des moments de partage, à se laisser porter par la liberté de vivre une succession d’événements parfois anodins mais d’une importance capitale. L’art est une aventure du quotidien, et la muse de Pat McCarthy est gourmande. Elle nous régale de Cheeseburger quand il sillonne la ville avec sa Cheesebike, ou d’images quand il équipe un chariot d’une photocopieuse. On vous souhaite à tous de le croiser.

Pat, a year ago you was presenting your fanzines Born to kill and Skirts at Fields effects within the photographic meetings of Arles. You come back now in France for a solo exhibition . What projects have you completed in the meantime?
In September 2015 I did a show with Ever Gold Projects in San Fransisco titled Shelters, a group of sculptures that study the varied archectitures that people create for pigeons. On the plane from NY to SF I brought two pigeons I raised. They traveled in a custom built basket under the seat in front of mine. The pigeons were performers in the exhibit, each residing in their own Cinematheque, sculptures of functioning bird houses that project super 8 films depicting the flights of my pigeon flocks in NY. The visiting bird is the traveling ambassador, the courier present to deliver correspondence from far off lands.
In New York there have been a ton of zine fairs and happenings.. The greatest of all being return of The Newsstand, the book shop that catalyzed New York’s current zine renaissance. Originally it existed for 9 months in 2013. It was rebuilt in exact replica at the Museum of Modern Art, as a viewing library. From November 2015 through March 2016. The bookshelves were completely filled with copies of every zine that appeared in the original space. 1200 zines total, made by hundreds of artists. In the museum 20 of us worked as daily clerks. Sitting behind the counter and sharing the space and zines with visitors. It was surreal hanging out in MoMA reading zines all day…
Three friends and I study ceramics together, as a group called Satan Ceramics. In the winter we did a crazy clusterfucked show in San Fransisco, again at Ever Gold Projects. Me, Mary Frey, Tom Sachs, and our teacher JJ PEET, the three biggest influences on my sculpture. I showed zines fired onto porcelain tablets, and a deceased pigeon embalmed in clear resin inside a stoneware casket.

Your creations are resolutely turned towards the contact with the people, with the street. How your work does it « eat » this urban life?
I think I often approach making artwork as a means to articulate and find hidden narrative in the daily rituals of my life. And I’m a city-guy through and through, find life most interesting when there’s perpetually movement happening around me.

What moments are you going to share with the people of Marseille ?
I hope to demonstrate that zine making is an incredibly fast, versatile, and sincere means of expression. I will be working daily with kids in la Busserine. Excited to see what they share and teach me. For producing zines together, I will build a mobile zine-making machine, using a photocopier and a gasoline generator mounted together on a wheeled cart. A tool for demonstrating zine production – from collection of content, to assemblage of maquette, to printing and distribution. It is called Chariot de Papier.

Laura Morsch-Kihn said that with you » fanzine became a new place where art can be . » On what occasion did you meet Laura and how did you prepare for this exhibition at the FRAC PACA ?
We met in Brussels in April 2014, a couple days after I arrived from a long voyage aboard a transatlantic container ship, The purpose of the trip was to transport my motorbike called The Cheesebike, from New York to an exhibition in Brussels. At sea, I was utterly alone, trapped in my head but free to explore the enormous vessel. I recorded the events and adventures, synthesizing it all into a fanzine, made at sea. At my friends home in Brussels while sitting on the floor folding the printed issues, Laura walked in. We hit it off, and talked for hours about books and artists and travel. That night we ate cheese sandwiches together, that were cooked using the Cheesebike, outside an excellent party at Delire Gallery.

Six months ago Laura told me to make the FRAC show feel like « the belly of Moby Dick ». I thought about the Captain’s writing carved onto the walls of the whale’s stomach, his words becoming architectural gestures. Paper itself is fragile, ephemeral, but over thousands of pages in my Born to Kill ouerve I have constructed a strong and immense archive of experience. At the FRAC, in Brick by Brick by nailing thousands of zines to the walls, we hope to present a library turned inside out and a portrayal of a practice of zine-making.