PaperCity Magazine

October 2017- Dallas

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36 P eter McGough, one half of a pair of collaborators who inhabit the 19th century in dress, home life, transportation and even thoughts, opens up about living in a time machine, why Oscar Wilde matters, and the power of talismans. Dallas Contemporary adjunct curator Alison Gingeras weighs in about why a radical retrospective is called for. Catherine D. Anspon investigates. Just who are McDermott & McGough? Famous for their dandyisms and all-out forsaking of modern life for a kinder, gentler, more civilized era, the duo has an awe-inducing penchant for living in the past — a practice that's arduous, obsessive, and quirky, yet also poetic and beautiful. Their ongoing magnum opus is enacted by their daily lives, via a lifestyle attuned to the late 19th century and into the Edwardian and Deco periods, meticulously detailed in dress, interiors, transportation, and even thought processes. While this ultimate act of performance art is captivating to a magazine audience, it has also earned them international exhibitions and anointment in a slew of Whitney Biennials; 30 years ago, the pair's canvas A Friend of Dorothy stole the show in the 1987 Whitney Biennial for its references to slang names for being gay. The artists' time-travel practice takes a stance for equal rights for the LGBTQ population, and it couldn't be more relevant. Their neglect by the art world today in America is fi nally over, and the Dallas Contemporary is part of the reason why. Since meeting in 1980 at Syracuse University and coming together professionally and personally as artistic and life partners, McDermott & McGough have taken their experiments in time travel to an unparalleled level of detail and verisimilitude. Their top fl oor of an East Village townhouse in the 1980s — at the height of the Village's artistic ferment, where they palled around with Jean-Michel Basquiat, Fab Five Freddy, Keith Haring, and A DATE WITH THE PAST McDERMOTT & McGOUGH'S FIRST AMERICAN RETROSPECTIVE UNVEILS AT DALLAS CONTEMPORARY. Peter McGough and David McDermott

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