Paul McCarthy

Blockhead and Daddies Bighead

What he does, the bacchanalian chaos he generates and the terror and lust he arouses in most onlookers, is the result of an exceedingly conscious oeuvre – 40 years of hard work. Even if his method and oeuvre leave room for improvisation and intuition, they are by no means the work of a madman – this is obvious to anyone who is familiar with him and his place in art history, but to the uninitiated visitor who is confronted with his work for the first time it can be worth pointing out. Nor are these the autobiographical attempts of a disturbed mind to come to terms with his own personal problems. Paul McCarthy’s works incorporate a sharp social critique, which focuses on social and cultural traumas rather than on private issues…

The Box

Paul McCarthy (USA, 1945) has been widely recognized since the 1990s for his large-format video installations and sculptures. Many of his works draw on the vocabulary of contemporary popular culture…

Works in the MOMA collection

Untitled, 1992/1993. From: Heidi

On the one hand Peter and Paul by Paul McCarthy is an ironical self-portrait of the artist, on the other hand it shows the naked body as a projection surface. Simultaneously, by the combination of the body and its mould, inside and outside are brought together..