Paul McCarthy dominates the New York art scene this season
Every dog may have its day, but in the case of the provocative artist Paul McCarthy, the dog seems to be having a whole season. The artist is dominating the New York art scene this Spring with a little help from Hauser & Wirth gallery, which is devoting both of its spaces in the city to separate exhibitions of his work, as well as showing an 80ft tall McCarthy sculpture at Frieze Art Fair. Following these, his much anticipated installation, 'WS', will go on show at the Park Avenue Armory on 19 June - which you can preview in our very own McCarthy special in this month’s issue.
As our bound-in portfolio this month shows, McCarthy has been long obsessed with blurring the lines between reality and desire. By using the Walt Disney telling of Snow White and appropriating familiar ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ imagery (the focus of a third exhibition, ‘Rebel Dabble Babble’ opening at Hauser & Wirth downtown on 20 June) McCarthy’s perverse and erotic delivery is complex and impactful.
Last Friday, Hauser & Wirth’s new downtown space unveiled ‘Sculptures', a series of black walnut wood sculptures, inspired by McCarthy’s ongoing interpretation of the Snow White fairytale. McCarthy used a complex combination of woodcarving and bronze casting to create the perfectly twisted final products; each is larger-than-life and abstractedly misshapen to be more akin to the original German folk story than the popular naïve fairytale. One sculpture, ‘White Snow and Prince on Horseback’ show the happy couple, fused together at their enlarged heads, eerily riding off into the distance.
Concurrently at the gallery’s uptown space, ‘Life Cast’ showcases five platinum silicone life cast nude figures – four of McCarthy’s muse Elyse Poppers (who plays White Snow) and one of the artist himself. 'This is not looking at realism as a finality, but as a process,' the artist explained. '[The woman] is real, but she’s in a state of unreal because she’s not exactly there. It was about capturing the compression of time.'
'I made a series of drawings of my wife in the same [seated] position in the 1960s… and the subject came back to me about ten years ago,' McCarthy continued. 'I wanted to make this piece quite a long time ago. I think I was looking for someone who understood it. Looking for that was critical. I wasn’t looking for another fucking technician.'
The artist worked with a team of five to create the full scale, hyper-real sculptures, which depict even the tiniest details, from hairs on the arms to veins running underneath the skin, in full authenticity. 'You’re going deeper for a reason. You’re not making another sex doll. $10,000 will buy you anything. I believed in the subject and I needed people who believed in the subject.'
Another McCarthy work, ‘Balloon Dog’, is commanding attention at Frieze New York’s sculpture park on Randall’s Island. The vast sculpture is a real moving balloon, instead of a photographic sculpture that one might have expected. The no-holds-barred scale and pop-cultural tone is (Paul) McCarthyism at its best - and a great precursor to the grand reveal of ‘WS’ next month.
Photographs taken during the filming of 'Rebel Dabble Babble', by Paul McCarthy and Damon McCarthy, 2011-2012. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photography: Joshua White
ADDRESS
Hauser & Wirth
32 East 69th Street
New York
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Pei-Ru Keh is a former US Editor at Wallpaper*. Born and raised in Singapore, she has been a New Yorker since 2013. Pei-Ru held various titles at Wallpaper* between 2007 and 2023. She reports on design, tech, art, architecture, fashion, beauty and lifestyle happenings in the United States, both in print and digitally. Pei-Ru took a key role in championing diversity and representation within Wallpaper's content pillars, actively seeking out stories that reflect a wide range of perspectives. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children, and is currently learning how to drive.
-
Looking for a long-range luxury EV that’s a true Tesla alternative? Welcome to the Lucid Air
We drive the Lucid Air, the high-performance Californian EV that’s a welcome leftfield choice in a sea of Musk-mobiles. Vote Lucid!
By Guy Bird Published
-
Umbrian castle hotel Reschio seduces with 1,000 years of history, now explored in a new book
The estate, home to a boutique hotel and rentable houses, is documented in Rizzoli's ‘Reschio: the First Thousand Years’ – and is open for stays
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Light, nature and modernist architecture: welcome to the reimagined Longwood Gardens
Longwood Gardens and its modernist Roberto Burle Marx-designed greenhouse get a makeover by Weiss/Manfredi and Reed Hildebrand in the US
By Ian Volner Published
-
Frieze Sculpture takes over Regent’s Park
Twenty-two international artists turn the English gardens into a dream-like landscape and remind us of our inextricable connection to the natural world
By Smilian Cibic Published
-
Brutalism in film: the beautiful house that forms the backdrop to The Room Next Door
The Room Next Door's production designer discusses mood-boarding and scene-setting for a moving film about friendship, fragility and the final curtain
By Anne Soward Published
-
Frieze London 2024: everything to see and do
London Frieze Week runs until 13 October 2024; here are the must-sees inside and outside the fair
By Amah-Rose Abrams Last updated
-
'There’s an anxiety under all of it': Violet Dennison in New York
Violet Dennison debuts abstract paintings with new show 'Damaged Self' at Tara Downs Gallery
By Mary Cleary Published
-
‘Gas Tank City’, a new monograph by Andrew Holmes, is a photorealist eye on the American West
‘Gas Tank City’ chronicles the artist’s journey across truck-stop America, creating meticulous drawings of fleeting moments
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Mark Armijo McKnight’s bodily landscapes capture the tactile serenity of the American West
The artist’s new exhibition at the Whitney Museum, which is organised by the museum curator Drew Sawyer, offers a succinct window into his contemplative suggestion of queering a landscape
By Osman Can Yerebakan Published
-
Dark, glamorous and hedonistic: a photography book captures New York in the 1990s
New York: High Life, Low Life, by Dafydd Jones, goes behind the scenes of New York society
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Derrick Alexis Coard’s portraits are a sensitive, positive testimony to Black men
The late artist Derrick Alexis Coard’s retrospective ‘I Am That I Am’, at New York’s Salon 94, honours his ‘symbolic expression for possible change for the African-American male community’
By Tianna Williams Published