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Paul Dreaming, Vertical, Horizontal

Paul McCarthy American

Not on view

McCarthy explores the potential of the surrogate figure—an inanimate object with human characteristics—as a means of visualizing subjective experience and confronting mortality. Cast from the artist’s standing body (as evidenced by the figure’s flat feet and straight back) in 2005 and intended as a prop for one of his films, the figure went unused until 2012, when McCarthy decided to partially clothe and recline it on a padded lawn chair. By contrasting the seeming vitality of a vertical (grounded) body with the ambiguity of a horizontal one, the scene becomes one imaginable in a backyard setting, where the figure may be sleeping or in an unconscious state.

Paul Dreaming, Vertical, Horizontal, Paul McCarthy (American, born 1945), Platinum silicone, clothing, plastic, foam, lawn chair

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Photo: Fredrik Nilsen

Paul Dreaming, Vertical, Horizontal, Paul McCarthy (American, born 1945), Platinum silicone, clothing, plastic, foam, lawn chair
Paul Dreaming, Vertical, Horizontal, Paul McCarthy (American, born 1945), Platinum silicone, clothing, plastic, foam, lawn chair

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