In this volume, a hybrid monograph and artist’s book conceived by the artist himself, Paul McCarthy (born 1945) presents paintings related to his projects White Snow and Coach Stage Stage Coach. In these paintings, McCarthy continues his career-long probing of what happens when human drives and desires meet archetypal American narratives like Snow White or the Western.
The two bodies of work in this publication relate to different stages in McCarthy’s multidisciplinary, multimedia practice: in the White Snow paintings, McCarthy reimagines moments from performances already enacted, and in the Coach Stage Stage Coach series, McCarthy makes unscripted storyboards as a starting point for a future performance and film. But both series are united by McCarthy’s provocative sensibility and subversive wit; McCarthy adapts a charged, gestural painting style to a scatological performance played out on the surface of the canvas.
Ralph Rugoff is Director of the Hayward Gallery in London. Kristine Stiles is Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke University. Giacinto Di Pietrantonio is Director of the Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Bergamo.