Paul McCarthy in What a Wonderful World: An Audiovisual Poem
6 February–20 March 2026
Group exhibition at Variety Arts Theater, Los Angeles, CA, USA
What a Wonderful World: An Audiovisual Poem, edited by Udo Kittelmann, is a sweeping odyssey into the depths of human experience, unfolding through film and video. Marking the first major presentation of works from the Julia Stoschek Foundation in the U.S., this audiovisual poem experiments with time-based media by placing contemporary video works in dialogue with silent films and early cinema classics. For the first time, a large-scale exhibition bridges these two universes, creating an unprecedented encounter across more than a century of visual storytelling.
Bringing one of the world’s leading collections of time-based art to a city defined by moving images sparks a rare conversation across disciplines. It dissolves the boundaries between visual art and cinema, museum and theater, white cube and black box. In doing so, it traces the evolution of visual storytelling over the past century, highlighting both the universality of human concerns and the shifting perspectives that shape their representation. What a Wonderful World presents a wide range of groundbreaking works by artists such as Marina Abramović, Cyprien Gaillard, Arthur Jafa, or Lu Yang, alongside cinematic milestones by Luis Buñuel, Walt Disney, Alice Guy-Blaché, Winsor McCay, and Georges Méliès. Together, these works form a panoramic and layered portrait of humanity and history across 120 years: altogether ironic, sincere, critical and compassionate. What a Wonderful World will unfold as an explorative journey, a cinematic mystery tour, a soul-stirring experience. It invites visitors to confront the secrets and fragilities of humanity while holding up a mirror to the state of the world today
Artist list: Marina Abramović, Doug Aitken, Kader Attia, Dara Birnbaum, Monica Bonvicini, Robert Boyd,Chris Burden, Paul Chan, Thomas Demand, Maya Deren, Cyprien Gaillard, Douglas Gordon, Anne Imhof, Arthur Jafa, Ulysses Jenkins, Jesper Just, Sigalit Landau, Mark Leckey, Klara Lidén, Paul McCarthy, Alex McQuilkin, Ana Mendieta, Precious Okoyomon, Jon Rafman, Bunny Rogers, Jacolby Satterwhite, Christoph Schlingensief, Jeremy Shaw, P. Staff, Sturtevant, Wolfgang Tillmans, Wu Tsang, Ant Farm & T.R. Uthco, Jordan Wolfson, Lu Yang.