Press Office: Press Releases
Paul McCarthy at Tate Modern
Monday 19 May – Sunday 26 October 2003
Admission Free
Public information number: 020 7887 8888.
Press release: 19 May 2003
Two newly commissioned inflatable sculptures by American artist Paul McCarthy form the first major installation on Tate Modern’s North Landscape. McCarthy is considered one of the most influential and groundbreaking artists of today. Through the works Blockhead and Daddies Bighead McCarthy continues his career-long exploration of American popular culture and stereotypes.
Paul McCarthy (born 1945) uses the language and imagery of the all-pervasive American consumer culture he grew up with, in work that distorts and mutates the familiar into the disturbing and carnivalesque. McCarthy first became known in the 1970s for his visceral performances and film works but during the 1990s extended his practice into stand alone sculptural figures, installations and most recently a series of large inflatable sculptures. His recent retrospective was shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 2000, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, the Villa Arson, Nice, France and Tate Liverpool in 2001.
Blockhead is loosely based on the character of Pinocchio, but as in much of McCarthy’s work, this popular children’s character is mutated,
on this occasion with funfair spectacle. There is an opening at the base of the figure leading into a cavernous hallway where
visitors will be able to purchase specially made candy. The enormous scale of the figure (the sculpture is some thirty five
metres high) is designed to physically overpower the viewer, an experience the artist has likened to standing at the bottom
of a cliff, describing the inflatable as ‘an abstract that rises up and over your head’. However, this extraordinary physical
presence will be seemingly negated by the black surface which McCarthy describes as creating ‘a black object’ which becomes
‘a hole in the landscape’. Among McCarthy’s earliest works was a series of black paintings made in 1967-68 and he has quoted
several of the leading artists from this period, such as American sculptor Tony Smith, in reference to the starkness of Blockhead’s black form.
Shown alongside Blockhead is Daddies Bighead, a second newly commissioned inflatable sculpture that stands approximately half the height of Blockhead at sixteen metres tall. Daddies Bighead is based on a ketchup bottle. Ketchup has been a pivotal motif through all of McCarthy’s work. He has frequently used ketchup
in his performances and installations, along with other grocery stables of domestic life such as mayonnaise and chocolate,
as stand-ins for bodily fluids.
Notes to Editors
For further information, please contact Nadine Thompson or Sioban Ketelaar,
Tate Press Office, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG
Call 020 7887 8731/01 Fax 020 7887 8729
Or Mary Minshull, The Henry Moore Foundation, Call 0113 2467467
Email pressoffice.tate.org.uk or press@henry-moore-fdn.co.uk
Visit www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/paulmccarthy/
Daddies Bighead is shown courtesy of Galerie Hauser and Wirth, Zürich and Luhring Augustine, New York. Blockhead is a reworking of Chocolate Blockhead, commissioned by In-Between for Expo 2000, Hanover.
