mixed media installation

February 20 - April 20 2001

Sculpture Garden at 590 Madison
entrance on 56th Street

Paul McCarthy's installation, The Box, was an exact yet dramatically skewed replica of the artist's entire studio placed inside a giant wooden crate. Set at 90 degrees, McCarthy's studio-in-a-box was physically disorienting with every piece of furniture, video equipment, tool, paper and prop emerging from the right hand wall instead of the floor. In this sideways studio, the original floor and ceiling became walls, and the original walls became the floor and ceiling. Viewing the space through the frame of one of the studio's rectangular windows, the sculpture was transformed into a monumental 3-D painting that was 20' high and stretched 50' to the rear of the room.

The outside of The Box was made of unfinished wood while the inside contained every one of the studio's thousands of actual objects and was complete with openings that were identical in location and size to windows and doors of the actual studio. The contents of The Box were all placed in the same visually chaotic position as they were in the original studio. The nature of the box's interior--its distorted perspective, enormous length, and unbelievable clutter--charged the space with an obsessive, disconcerting quality.

Artist Bio
Paul McCarthy is a seminal West Coast artist. Born in 1945 in Salt Lake City, Utah, McCarthy is known for his raw, visceral work which has taken form in a wide variety of media (photography, painting, performance, sculpture, video, installation, drawing, and painting) ranging in scale from monumental to intimate. Playing on illusions and cultural myths, McCarthy's work often embodies obsessive activities and challenges expected physical orientation. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Tate Modern, London (2003); Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York (2002); Galerie Hauser & Wirth, Zurich (2001); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2000); and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2000). He currently lives and works in Altadena, CA.

Sponsorship
The Public Art Fund's exhibition of The Box was presented in collaboration with the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York.

This exhibition was made possible by The Silverweed Foundation and presented in collaboration with the Sculpture Garden at 590 Madison.

Paul McCarthy's The Box was exhibited courtesy of Sammlung Hauser und Wirth, St. Gallen, Switzerland.

Location
Paul McCarthy's The Box was located at 590 Madison Avenue (entrance on 56th Street).