McCarthy works alone and collectively. She is one person and yet so much more — thinker and maker, feminist and altruist, poet and critic — rebel — artist. Together with curator Monika Bayer-Wermuth, she talks about her work and current affairs, about hairy saints and witches in the 21st century, about language and scapegoats, about the moon and moths, gravitating towards the light. A conversation between the years. Anna McCarthy, DRINK COLD PISS WARM. The first vein I want to tap for you is DRINK COLD PISS WARM, which was first a poem, then a film and ultimately became an exhibition.
The black humour and boiled-down criticism of overabundance and excess attracted me to it and seemed to be a fitting anecdote to what I was seeing. The aspect of drought in California was something that seemed to express this quite aptly. I have to laugh right now, thinking about the Californian drought while a water damage is being fixed in my home — an evening before Christmas.
And while I am sitting here at the computer, the radio is playing, and the television is running. But it is ! Amidst this sensory overkill made up of seductive advertisements, sports TV I love darts! And things, which might have appeared banal initially, are ascribed political gravitas. The fact that this city should not be where it is. There is just no water left for it.
I had not previously realised that LA had been in drought for years and that all the surrounding lakes are pumped sponge-dry in order to provide water for the city. Water is needed for drinking, washing, plantations, including citrus and almond, as well as the upkeep of green lawns with sprinklers and the accompanying underpaid Mexican staff.
LA has a real perversity to it. I specifically got interested in the drought topic when I heard a radio show about the palms in LA. The mayor was being interviewed and they were talking about getting rid of all the palm trees due to their uselessness and maybe exchanging them for oak trees. Imagine LA without palm trees? That was an image that stayed in my mind. The palm trees most common to LA the tall thin ones are imported from Mexico and have no use but decoration.
