Press Release

Xavier Hufkens presents an ensemble of sculptures, paintings and video work by the American artist Paul McCarthy, which will be displayed across both gallery spaces. The exhibition comprises works from three of McCarthy’s most important video performance installations of the last two decades: CP (Caribbean Pirates), WS (White Snow) and CSSC (Coach Stage Stage Coach) / DADDA (Donald And Daisy Duck Adventure).

From Caribbean Pirates, McCarthy presents new iterations of three seminal works: Captain Ballsack (2001–2018), Piggies (2006–2018) and Paula Jones (2007–2018). This sprawling opus, which was inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean amusement park ride at Disneyland, ultimately led to a spin-off project entitled Pig Island. The latter is the fictitious name given to a large object strewn stage in the middle of McCarthy’s studio, upon which the artist would assemble sculptures on the themes of pirates and pigs (or mutations thereof). Conceived as an artwork from the outset, it functioned as the wellspring for a series of works in which political figures, such as George W. Bush, engage in perverse sexual practices. Both Paula Jones and Piggies are products of this island, so to speak, whereas Captain Ballsack is an iconic figure from the overarching CP narrative, and whose origins can be traced back to the drawing Poop Deck (2001). Previously seen in their raw original states or cast into materials such as fibreglass and stainless steel, McCarthy reinvigorates these pivotal works in a blast of lurid technicolour. The smooth and diffuse painted finishes are unique: sprayed by the artist himself and manipulated by hand.

A group of pustular dwarves that drip with resin, foam and polyurethane have emerged from White Snow. These are the original clay sculptures from which bronze editions were cast. Corrupted and abstracted by the foundry mould-making process, McCarthy pushes the sculptures yet further: ‘freezing’ the hand-modelled figures, so to speak, in unctuous layers of sticky, synthetic resin, filling in losses or adding new accoutrements. The clay/resin and painted sculptures all bear witness to the hand of the artist: how McCarthy coaxes his works into being through classical processes of modelling and assemblage followed by destruction, manipulation and distortion; or the transformations effected through the application of resin or paint. At the same time, they also emphasise the self-generating nature of his practice. These sculptures are a never-ending work-in-progress: pieces constantly return and morph into new hybrids, spin-offs and alternative formats.

McCarthy’s large-scale WS paintings, two of which are also on view, combine traditional painting techniques with collaged materials (explicit images cut from porn magazines, a black-and-white photograph of Walt Disney, for example) and three-dimensional objects. In these works, McCarthy takes the medium of painting as a subject and uses it as a framework for his narratives around defilement. This also plays out in the bright and clear palette that becomes sullied through the swirls of brown and black pigments.

Oval Office (2015–2019) is a towering assemblage that critiques the myth of the Wild West and its role in the shaping of America’s national identity. The horses allude to the work of sculptor Frederic Remington (1861–1909), who is famous for his paintings and bronzes representing the old American west of cowboys, Indians and the U.S. Cavalry; the title points to the fact that every President, since time immemorial, seems to have placed one of these works in the Oval Office. Remington’s sculptures are now an ubiquitous feature of American life and often seen in homes, offices and public buildings. In this assemblage, McCarthy juxtaposes fact with fiction: the base is comprised of two stacked plinths of differing scales, as typically seen in cheap reproductions and faked examples of Remington’s work; the inner horses are made of resin covered clay (using a technique similar to the aforementioned clay dwarfs); the outer horses, on the other hand, are polyurethane taxidermy forms, hence the lack of ears, manes and tails. Real saddles and straps reinforce the tension between reality and artifice.

The American West is also the setting for the film component of the exhibition, which comprises two 90-minute sequences from Paul and Damon McCarthy’s CSSC and DADDA video performance installations. Made between 2014 and 2017, these projects will one day comprise some fifteen to twenty feature-length videos. In both films, McCarthy uses the visual language of Hollywood Westerns and their archetypal narratives–the stagecoach journey and the saloon fight–to magnify and intensify base human drives and desires. Both CSSC and DADDA depict hermetic dystopias that are devoid of all moral, religious and legal constraints. Within these dissolute realms, the marketable bedrocks of contemporary culture–sex and violence–are shown in their most extreme forms. Alcohol, the ever-popular social lubricant, features heavily in both scenarios as fuelling inhibition, loss of control and lascivious behaviour. Accompanying the films is a related series of photographic works.

Paul McCarthy (b. 1945, Salt Lake City) lives and works in Los Angeles. Solo exhibitions were held at M Woods, Beijing (2018); Fundació Gaspar, Barcelona (2017); Kulturzentrum Lokremise, St.Gallen (2016); The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2015); Monnaie de Paris, France (2014); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2012); Whitney Museum, New York (2008); SMAK, Ghent (2007); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2006); and Haus der Kunst, Munich (2005). He participated in many international events, including the Berlin Biennial (2006); the Whitney Biennial (1995, 1997, 2004); and the Venice Biennale (1993, 1999, 2001).

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About the Artist

American artist Paul McCarthy is known for his wide-ranging and often provocative and disturbing oeuvre, which encompasses performance, photography, film, multimedia installations, sculpture, drawing and painting. Messy, antagonistic, sexually explicit and politically charged, McCarthy’s output takes aim at consumerism, popular culture and our innermost fears and neuroses, such as sex, bodily fluids and human orifices. While he regularly appropriates icons of popular culture and childhood, including gnomes, Santa Claus, Barbie, Snow White and Heidi in his work, McCarthy inevitably recasts his characters as violent, malicious and depraved. His imagery, which can be both explicit and brutal, is often shocking, and he delights in sensory overload, frequently producing work that is either difficult to watch, or is deliberately intended to elicit feelings of discomfort and disgust. In a career spanning some five decades, McCarthy has come to be recognised as one of the greatest chroniclers, and transgressors, of contemporary social norms and taboos. Mercilessly ridiculing authority and the so-called rules of polite society, his anarchic oeuvre mixes both high and low culture, and provokes an analysis of our most fundamental and sacrosanct beliefs.

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Also Exhibiting at Xavier Hufkens

About the Gallery
Xavier Hufkens is one of Europe’s leading galleries for contemporary art. Located in Brussels, the gallery maintains a diverse exhibition programme with solo exhibitions of the gallery artists as well as group exhibitions and special projects. The gallery deals in a distinctive combination of painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video and installation-based work.

The origins of the gallery date back to 1987, when Xavier Hufkens opened a gallery space in an un-refurbished warehouse in the neighbourhood of the South Station (Midi) in Brussels. During the early years, the focus of the gallery was upon mid-career and emerging artists and the gallery is known for having introduced some of the most influential contemporary artists to Brussels at a time when they were still relatively unknown. British sculptor Antony Gormley, who is still affiliated with the gallery, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Rosemarie Trockel all showed in Belgium for the first time with Xavier Hufkens (Gormley in 1987; Gonzalez-Torres in 1991 and Trockel in 1993).

In 1992, the gallery moved to a 19th-century townhouse at 6 rue Saint-Georges, close to the Avenue Louise. Completely renovated by Belgian architects Paul Robbrecht, Hilde Daem and Marie-José Van Hee, the house quickly gained a reputation for being not just one of the most beautiful contemporary art spaces in the Belgian capital, but also one of the most interesting. The expanded exhibition programme coincided with the additional representation of a number of established artists from Belgium and abroad, including Richard Artschwager, Thierry De Cordier and Jan Vercruysse. In 1997, Hufkens expanded the gallery further by annexing the adjacent building and a number of new artists joined the gallery, including Louise Bourgeois, Roni Horn and Thomas Houseago.

A second space in the same street, at 107 rue Saint-Georges, opened in spring 2013. Located in the Galerie Rivoli, a mixed-use commercial development from the 1970s, the new gallery space was designed by Swiss architect Harry Gugger, who was previously in partnership with Herzog and De Meuron. Slegten & Toegemann, Brussels, managed the project. A third space opened in spring 2020, located at 44 Rue Van Eyck, designed by architect Bernard Dubois.

An eclectic but very clear vision underpins all of the gallery’s activities: 'The definition of the gallery was established from the start. The common thread, then and now, is quality over and above everything else, which I find more intellectually challenging than a forced definition. From the early days I juxtaposed established artists such as Michelangelo Pistoletto with someone like Felix Gonzalez-Torres when he was totally unknown. Today I still mix my work: I have no problem showing Malcolm Morley … alongside Robert Ryman, or Willem de Kooning.' [Xavier Hufkens in The Art Newspaper, Issue 220, January 2011, published online: 20 January 2011]

Xavier Hufkens represents some thirty artists from different generations. He was part of the six-member selection committee for Art Basel during seven years and also participates in up to five international Arts Fairs annually. The gallery has partnerships with the estates of Louise Bourgeois, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mapplethorpe and Alice Neel.
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