Paul McCarthy
A&E, Adolf & Eva, Adam & Eve, Dead End Hole, 7 Blocks, 2024
seven inkjet prints @ 10.25 x 13.375" each


A&E, Adolf & Eva, Adam & Eve, Dead End is a script for two performers written in a dense format that the artist refers to as “blocks.” A dialogue for a “sculptural reading” the subject of A&E, Adolf & Eva encompasses a complex cycle collapsing historical events with mythological archetypes that McCarthy and the German actor Lilith Stangenberg have been collaborating on for nearly five years. In their emphasis on regeneration and renewal the scripts and related series all evoke the promise of carnival and its abjection of hierarchy through base materialism—themes McCarthy has been expertly engaging for more than fifty years.

Pasted directly on the gallery’s rough walls using wheat paste, the printed blocks contort themselves in unexpected ways evoking a morphological body that powerfully animates the link between spoken word and Dionysian rite harkening back to McCarthy’s broad oeuvre and nodding directly to his longstanding interest in architecture as a ritual stage, as illustrated in such iconic works as Dead H and The Box.

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