Yo ho ho as opposed to Oh Yoko...

By sizemore Last edited 222 months ago
Yo ho ho as opposed to Oh Yoko...
pirates.jpg

When we read the headline 'Orgies and battles' promised at Paul McCarthy's pirate theme park in today's G2 we misread the artist's name as Paul McCartney and immediately re-examined our judgment of the Beatilic one - imagining the ghost of John Lennon made animatronic and Yoko One made apologetic thanks to a long walk along a short plank. Then our eyes came into focus again and we shoved McCartney back into the file marked 'Frog Chorus' (cross referenced with James Bond music). Which is a good thing because to read the article in full without correcting that oversight leads to an image of Macca playing bass with his penis. Yeah that made our eyes water too...

So what the hell is all this about pirates? It seems that McCarthy is transforming a London warehouse into an extraordinary theme park of violence and sexual debauchery. Anything that's not more luxury flats gets our vote, but is this art or is he just having a laugh? Well a bit of both by the sound of things according to Anthony Spira, curator of the Whitechapel Gallery, who says that "It's like visiting a theme park, but one that has gone dreadfully wrong... A bit like the one in Michael Jackson's back garden then...

He's taking mainstream entertainment and turning it on its head. If you get it, it's absolutely hilarious. Some people are simply shocked and find it really disgusting; others see that there's a funny side to it... It's very extreme... It presents the dark side of the Caribbean myth. There's all sorts of debauchery and violent behaviour going on - people's limbs being cut off, ketchup splattered everywhere. It's very gory. There are orgies and battles."

Anything that was inspired by both The Pirates of the Caribbean ala Johnny Depp and Abu Ghraib has got to be worth a look. More details here.

Last Updated 27 September 2005