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Paul McCarthy

American artist Paul McCarthy is known for his wide-ranging and often provocative and disturbing œuvre, which encompasses performance, photography, film, multimedia installations, sculpture, drawing and painting. Messy, antagonistic, sexually explicit and politically charged, McCarthy’s output takes aim at consumerism, popular culture and our innermost fears and neuroses, such as sex, bodily fluids and human orifices. While he regularly appropriates icons of popular culture and childhood, including Santa Claus, Barbie, Snow White and Heidi in his work, McCarthy inevitably recasts his characters as violent, malicious and depraved. In a career spanning some five decades, McCarthy has come to be recognised as one of the greatest chroniclers, and transgressors, of contemporary social norms and taboos. Mercilessly ridiculing authority and the so-called rules of polite society, his anarchic œuvre mixes both high and low culture, and provokes an analysis of our most fundamental and sacrosanct beliefs.

Paul McCarthy (b. 1945, Salt Lake City, UT, USA) lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Solo exhibitions were held at KODE, Bergen (2021); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2020) Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig (2018); M Woods, Beijing (2018); Faurschou Foundation in Venice (2017); Fundació Gaspar, Barcelona (2017); Kulturzentrum Lokremise, St.Gallen (2016); The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2015); Monnaie de Paris (2014); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2012); Whitney Museum, New York (2008); SMAK, Ghent (2007); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2006); and Haus der Kunst, Munich (2005). He has also participated in many international events, including the Berlin Biennial (2006); the Whitney Biennial (1995, 1997, 2004); and the Venice Biennale (1993, 1999, 2001).

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Selected Images

  • NV/Night Father/Vienna, 2022

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  • CSSC Luncheon on the Grass, 2015-2018

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  • Pot Head, 2009-2017

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  • DADDA, DON MOUTH MOUTH DAISEY FOOCK FINGER FUCK,, 2018

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  • CSSC, Mary, Adam, and Eve, 2019

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  • White Snow, Wood Sculptures
    Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA, 2016

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  • WS, White Snow Walt Paul, The Grove, 2015

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  • Mary Magdalene Red Waterfall, 2017

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  • Eve Adam Pedestal, 2017

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  • Paul McCarthy
    LOK Kunsthaus, St. Gallen, 2016

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  • CSSC, Frederic Remington Charles Bronson, 2014-2016

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  • SC Western Black River, 2016

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  • SC, Luncheon on the Grass (Déjeuner sur l'herbe), 2014

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  • CSSC Passengers, Dogs, Group 4, 1-10, 2015

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  • CSSC Passengers, Dogs, Group 6, 1-6, 2015

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  • Paul McCarthy: WS
    Park Avenue Armory, New York, NY, 2013

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  • White Snow Head, 2012-2013

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  • Sisters
    deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA, USA, 2013

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  • Santa Butt Plug
    Middelheim Sculpture Museum, Antwerp, 2007

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  • Piggies
    Middelheim Sculpture Museum, Antwerp, 2007

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  • Propo - Daddies Ketchup, 1992

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  • Assortment, The Trunks, Human Object and PROPO Photographs, 1972 – 2003

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  • Santa Chocolate Shop, 1997

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  • Painter, 1995

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  • Tomato Heads, 1994

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Selected media

In conversation with Julien Bismuth and Mike Bouchet

On the occasion of the exhibition at Xavier Hufkens (2023)

Exhibitions

Publications