Aryan Death Ship 2010

Overview

In 1983, Paul McCarthy realised the performance Aryan Death Ship in which the artist assumed the authoritative figure of the captain of an ‘Aryan Ship of Death’. The performance viewers were expected to interact with and humour the grotesque antics of the captain, as though they were a crew subjected to his tyranny. Amplifying shipboard power relations and the violence associated with the figure of the sea captain, Aryan Death Ship is one of several of McCarthy’s performances dedicated to the su