M HKA Ensembles

Sculpture, 60 x 60 x 46 cm.

Collection: Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels.

Paul McCarthy is widely regarded as the most influential sculpture, installation and performance artist. He belongs to a generation that reacted to the Minimal and Concept Art of the sixties in a way that reinstates the bond between art and the societal context. McCarthy uses art to discover the coherence between the individual and society. Well known situations and events are deconstructed and given new meaning in his artworks. His work is mainly influenced by modern day television and commercials as well as Hollywood and Disney. He uses modern day myths and mixes them with his own critical views.

The focus on sex and violence in his artworks is always in a certain context and represent the symbolic violence that is omnipresent in today’s mass media culture and even in family values. McCarthy is deeply interested in the deep rooted psychological layers of a culture, which is stuck in the standard cycle of raising a family and today’s media. He reacts to a culture that often befouls their own values. His methods to break through the taboos of such a culture are just as provocative as they are intelligent and humorous.