Paul McCarthy's A&E 'Dead End Hole' with Mike Kelley & Paul McCarthy: Sod & Sodie Sock

CATHODE CINEMA PRESENTS: AN EVENING WITH PAUL McCARTHY

Paul McCarthy / Mike Kelley
Sod and Sodie Sock - Vienna Cut, 1999, 4:3 color video w/sound

Originally presented as part of the immersive installation Sod and Sodie Sock Comp O.S.O, McCarthy and Kelley’s work transformed the space into a disorienting American military camp with tents, objects, and media fragments merging into a charged environment that blurs history, culture, and absurdist theater.
This rare 17-minute “Vienna Cut” excerpt focuses on the video component, a chaotic, darkly comic portrayal of camp life where staged rituals, improvised actions, and unsettling juxtapositions unravel into a critique of American mythology and collective memory.

© Paul McCarthy and The Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. Courtesy the artists and Hauser & Wirth

A&E, Adolf & Eva / Adam & Eve, Dead End Hole, 2021/2023, 16:9 2-channel 4k color video w/ sound

A fantasy drama of Adolf Adam (Paul McCarthy) and Eva Eve (Lilith Stangenberg). Adolf as an American father/son fascist artist and Eva as a German mother/daughter Marilyn Monroe. The action is a masochistic erotic game of play between Eva and Adolf, the two buffoons.

Performed on November 19th, 2021 in a bomb shelter located in the basement of Kode Lysverket Art Museum in Bergen, Norway. The bomb shelter bunker is now used as storage for the museum. The video performance was shown live to a public audience, 2 floors above on 5 video projectors, in separate but adjacent spaces.

CONTENT WARNING: CONTAINS PORTRAYALS OF GRAPHIC SEXUAL VIOLENCE INVOLVING BODILY FLUIDS WITHIN A PERFORMANCE ART CONTEXT.

Following the screening: Paul McCarthy & Lilith Stangenberg will be joined in conversation with Larry Charles – Award-winning writer, director, and producer (Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Borat, Bruno and author of the new book ‘Comedy Samurai : 40 years of Blood, Guts and Laughter).