Biography

Paul McCarthy (American, born 1945 in Salt Lake City, UT) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. He received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1969 and an MFA from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, in 1972. Ascending into the art world in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, McCarthy was part of an essential group of divergent artists teaching and working in the city, some of whom, like McCarthy himself, made messy, scatological, and performance-based works that challenged the status quo. Formally trained as a painter, McCarthy taught performance, video, installation, and performance art history at the University of California, Los Angeles, from 1984 to 2003 and currently works primarily in sculpture and video.

McCarthy has exhibited nationally and internationally, with recent solo exhibitions including WS, Park Avenue Armory, New York City (2013); Life Cast, Sculptures, and Rebel Dabble Babble, Hauser & Wirth, New York City (2013); Paul McCarthy. The Box, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2012); Paul McCarthy, Nine Dwarves, Kukje Gallery, Seoul (2012); Pig Island, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan (2010); White Snow, Hauser & Wirth, New York City (2009); Paul McCarthy—Air Pressure, De Uithof, Utrecht, Netherlands (2009); and Central Symmetrical Rotation Movement—Three Installations, Two Films, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City (2008).

The artist has also exhibited in numerous international art events, including the Venice Biennale (1993, 1999, 2001, and 2013), the Berlin Biennale (2006), SITE Santa Fe (2004), and the Whitney Biennial (1995, 1997, and 2004). McCarthy’s work can be found in permanent museum collections including the Guggenheim Museum, New York City; the Museum of Modern Art, New York City; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, among others.

At The Contemporary