© Adagp, Paris
"I had this thing about exposing the interior of the body."
Paul McCarthy is a contemporary American artist who works in many fields such as performance, sculpture, and film. Inspired by American popular culture, sexual allusions, and the work of Joseph Beuys, McCarthy constructs complex critiques of consumer society and art. McCarthy is renowned for his exploration of sexuality and his corrosive humor; onanism, exhibitionism, and punishment are present from his earliest works. Pleasure, masochism, suffering, sarcasm… Paul McCarthy explores sexuality head-on without removing its contradictions and ambiguities.