Bavarian Kick/Bambi

The sociability of the Bavarian beer tent is legendary and stands for comfortable good cheer, for relaxed celebration enveloped in large numbers of like-minded people. "Bavarian Kick" by Paul McCarthy shows how something intrinsically harmless and comical can turn uncanny. Two dolls, a man and a woman, on a platform come from behind doors and incessantly toast each other and kick each other. In McCarthy’s work the sociable clinking of beer mugs which, in the beer tent, serves time and again to underline a cheerful togetherness slowly becomes a threatening gesture devoid of meaning. What might initially be interpreted as a witty persiflage of Bavarian customs undergoes a transformation, with long-term scrutiny becoming a repetitive, almost enervating discharge of violence. Paul McCarthy has taken the word slapstick literally: the protagonists in his little comedy really do hit each other. McCarthy searches for the aggression behind the apparent harmlessness everyday gestures and habits. The issues raised by his work live from the exaggeration of the childishly banal and charmingly kitschy until they become threatening scenarios that are sexually provocative or intentionally politically incorrect.