Paul McCarthy Continues to Define the Language of the Obscene in Them as Was Is @ Galerie Max Hetzler in Berlin

Bringing together past and present, then and now, Them as Was Is, Paul McCarthy’s first solo exhibition with Galerie Max Hetzler, presents two fundamental aspects of McCarthy’s practice. On the ground floor, eighteen sculptures constitute an early endeavour by the artist to combine different periods of sculpture into one, allowing visitors to draw out the similarities that weave together his most iconic sculptural projects. On the gallery’s upper floor, a series of drawings and video works from the artist’s more recent ‘A&E’ (2019–) project show film and performance to be at the heart of McCarthy’s practice.

The gallery’s second floor presents drawings created by McCarthy during improvised performances between himself and German actress Lilith Stangenberg as part of their ongoing ‘A&E’ project. The project’s title refers to the layered alter egos which McCarthy and Stangenberg assume: Adolf Hitler & Eva Braun, Adam & Eve, Arts & Entertainment, America & Europe. Created during hours-long sessions in which the collaborators enter a state of delirium, the drawings possess a radical immediacy and undeniable physicality. Alongside unconscious scrawls, magazine clippings, and imagery of Hitler and Mickey Mouse, certain drawings incorporate the artist’s tools, providing witness to the gestures embedded in them.

 
 

Them as Was Is is on view through October 21st at Galerie Max Hetzler, Potsdamer Straße 77-87, Berlin.

"Don't Look Back: The 90s At MOCA" Group Show @ The Museum of Contemporary Art In Los Angeles

Don’t Look Back: The 1990s at MOCA comprises works from MOCA’s permanent collection that identify the recent decade’s key concerns and transformations, including many that have not been on view since originally shown and acquired. If the 1980s were shaped by the advent of identity politics, producing significant works that examined the nexus of race, gender, and sexuality, the 1990s both extended and challenged these ideas. Many artists turned to large-scale installations as a way to convey a complicated interface between the public and the museum, or to articulate the realms of overlap and dissonance in individual and public identities. The exhibition includes works by Catherine Opie, Cady Noland, Sarah Sze, and Paul McCarthy, among others, and explores the complexities of the period by dividing the presentation into six thematically grouped sections, titled: Installation; The Outmoded; Noir America; Place and Identity; Touch, Intimacy, and Queerness; and Space, Place, and Scale. Don’t Look Back: The 1990s at MOCA will be on view until July 11, 2016 at the Museum of Contemporary Art In Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper