Le mot grotesque est mal défini ; il recouvre, comme nom et adjectif, des réalités très disparates. Aussi, comment peut-il être utilisé pour désigner un système cohérent de représentation  ? Quel est le point commun à toutes les formes du grotesque ?Dans un premier temps, il s’agit de présenter un panorama des références nécessaires à une description synthétique des motifs du grotesque. Deux analyses se sont particulièrement révélées stimulantes dans le processus : celles de Wolfgang Kayser et Mikhaïl Bakhtine. Analyses qui ne datent que d’environ un demi-siècle et reposent sur un corpus littéraire (respectivement Kafka et Rabelais). Puis il sera question des tenants et aboutissants du grotesque en fonction des contraintes et possibilités des différents mediums de l’art contemporain. Ainsi, dans quelle mesure les outils critiques de la littérature peuvent-ils être féconds pour la compréhension de ces formes plastiques ?Dans un second temps, il apparaît que le corps humain et ses acceptions sociale, culturelle, psychologique, ait pris une place prépondérante dans la production plastique du XXe siècle en ce sens que le support se fait documentaire. En quoi cette politique du corps s’est-elle structurée à un moment ou un autre sur le motif du grotesque ?Ensuite, il s’agit de produire une typologie des manifestations du grotesque et des réactions qu’elles suscitent. Dans quelle mesure ces émotions ont-elles leur part dans une compréhension de l’individu en tant que tel et de son mode de vie, des rapports de pouvoir et des aspirations qui les traversent ?Enfin, le grotesque semble se perdre dans les tentatives de définition, notamment en fournissant des modèles esthétiques hétéroclites. Comment serait-il possible toutefois de solidifier ses expressions en des formes théorisées distinctes ? Ainsi une théorie des formes du grotesque, aussi disparates qu’elles puissent être, et en évolution permanente, pourrait bien être un outil incontournable pour une appréhension sensible de l’art contemporain et ainsi peut-être s’en approprier les motifs. / The word grotesque has never been accurately defined. As a noun and an adjective, it covers disparate concepts. Therefore how could it be used to designate a coherent representational system? What is the common point between all the forms of the grotesque?Firstly we’ll present a comprehensive overview of the references necessary to the description of grotesque patterns. In this process, two analysis have been particularly stimulating : those of w k and m b. These analysis are less than fifty years and are respectively based on Kafka and Rabelais’ body of literature.We’ll then talk about the ins and outs of the grotesque depending on both the possibilities and the constraints of contemporary artistic mediums. We’ll also explain how literary critical tools can help understand the art forms of the grotesque. Secondly we’ll see how the human body - as well as its social, cultural and psychological acceptions - have become predominant in the artistic production of the 20th century. How have these acceptions sooner or later edified a conceptual body around the notion of grotesque ?Thirdly we’ll try and produce a typology of the manifestations of the grotesque as well as a typology of the reactions it has generated. To what extent have these emotions played a part in the understanding of the human being and its lifestyle? Finally we’ll see how the grotesque tends to loose its meaning when we attempt to define it. It is especially the case when those attempts try to provide aesthetic benchmarks. However, could it be possible to consolidate those analysis and turn them into several distinctive theories?The forms of the grotesque are diverse, disparate and in constant evolution. However a theory of these forms is a tool not only indispensable to the comprehension of contemporary art but also necessary to the understanding of its patterns.

Syftet med denna studie är att utföra en kritisk diskursanalys av ett urval konstkritiska texter som behandlar utställningarna Paul McCarthy: Head Shop/Shop Head från 2006 och Nationalmuseums Lust & Last från 2011. Utställningarna exemplifierar det jag kallar för den provokativa konstens diskurs. Genom analyserna vill jag se hur ett urval kritiker mottagit utställningarna samt ge en bild av den provokativa konstens diskurs med dessa två utställningar som exempel. / The exhibitions, Paul McCarthy’s Head Shop/Shop Head shown in 2006 and the Nationalmuseum’s Lust & Last shown in 2011, are in centre of this essay. The aim of the essay is to perform a discourse analytical study of a selection of art critical texts concerning these two exhibitions. The exhibitions exemplify what I have chosen to call “The provocative discourse of art”. I want to examine how a selection of art critics received the exhibitions, and also to present a view of “the provocative discourse of art”.

Since the 1970s, the work of Los Angeles-based artist Paul McCarthy (b. 1945) has included live performance, video, sculpture, kinetic tableaux, and installation. Tracing the development of McCarthy’s work between 1974 and 2013, I undertake a critical discussion of the development of performance in relation to visual art practices. Using one artist’s work as a guide through a number of key discussions in the history of performance art, I argue that performance has influenced every aspect of McCarthy’s artistic practice, and continues to inform critical readings of his work. My thesis follows the trajectory of McCarthy’s performance practice as it has developed through different contexts. I begin with the early documentation and dissemination of performance in the Los Angeles-based magazine High Performance (1978-83), which established a context for the reception of performance art, and for McCarthy’s early work. I then examine specific examples of McCarthy’s practice in relation to his critical reception: live performances and videos from the 1970s are discussed alongside critical readings of his work influenced by psychoanalysis; and the wider public recognition of McCarthy’s object-based art in the 1980s and early 1990s. I then look more broadly at the recent trend of re-enacting historical performances in the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time project (2011-12), as a mode of engaging with performance history and exploring how histories of ephemeral art are re-iterated over time. Finally, I discuss a number of McCarthy’s recent exhibitions and installations that mobilises a wider consideration of the histories of performance and ephemeral practices in art institutions. McCarthy’s work is firmly established in the art world, and I argue that his work also provides a significant touchstone for histories of performance. I look historically at how McCarthy’s work has been documented, disseminated, curated, and re-performed, and open wider discussions about ways of engaging with performance history. In turn, I complicate the relationship between performance and the art world; between ephemeral art and object-based art practices; and between scholarly engagements with performance history, and the public presentation of performance in curatorial practices and institutional contexts.