Continuing through November 6, 2010
This inaugural exhibition at perhaps the major new gallery launch this year is both minimal and maximal. The beautifully proportioned gallery fuses new with old - the brick structure has been modified to include glass corners and skylights. The includes a garden area, allowing for a casual inside/outside relationship, Paul McCarthy takes full advantage of what the spaces can offer, filling the two interior galleries as well as the grassy area.
The sculptures are quintessential McCarthy: in your face, bold and confrontational. "Train, Mechanical" (2003-2010) features a George Bush look-alike mounting a mechanical pig from behind. The work is satirical, and ironic, and because it is mechanized it demonstrates rather than suggests. The other indoor sculpture, "Ship of Fools, Ship Adrift" (2010), is a black bronze that appears to have been dipped in tar. The tableau is of children cast adrift in a decomposing sea. The outdoor work, "Apple Tree Boy, Apple Tree Girl" (2010) has Adam and Eve finding themselves reborn as giant robotic figures who appear to swing on larger than life size trees. If each work is impeccably crafted and seductive to look at on that level, the content debunks myth and politics bluntly and offensively, so be on your toes.
L & M Arts
