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Paul McCarthy

Mimi
Price available upon request

2006 – 2008
Pink silicone rubber, steel

Ed. 1/6 + 2 AP
73.7 x 61 x 40.6 cm / 29 x 24 x 16 in
This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.

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Paul McCarthy’s ‘Mimi’ (2006 – 2008), so-named after his sister, stems from the artist’s ‘Hummel’ series, which are inspired by mass-produced mid-century Germanic kitsch figurines of cherubic children. In McCarthy’s world, however, the folkloric appearance of frolicking innocence portrayed in Hummel figurines becomes the subject of deconstruction and subversion. Here, ‘Mimi’ features a young girl and a fawn, presented together as a puritanical monolith in bubblegum pink, inviting in its implicit naïveté and reveling in saccharine sentimentality. And yet, belying the sculpture’s sleek façade, the garish deformation of these figures suggests the exploitation of youth, manufactured into an impossible ideal tailored for mass consumption. Irreverently pointing to the ideation of nostalgia and the use of children as objects of desire, McCarthy connects these themes to the insidious banality of fascism and patriarchal propaganda.

‘My work seems to be about tearing down and opening up conventions.’

Paul McCarthy [1]

About the artist

Paul McCarthy is widely considered to be one of the most influential and ground-breaking contemporary American artists. Born in 1945, and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, he first established a multi-faceted artistic practice, which sought to break the limitations of painting by using unorthodox materials such as bodily fluids and food. He has since become known for visceral, often hauntingly humorous work in a variety of mediums—from performance, photography, film and video, to sculpture, drawing and painting.

Learn more

Artwork images © Paul McCarthy. Photo: Stefan Altenburger Photography Zürich
Portrait © Paul McCarthy. Photo: Mara McCarthy

[1] Paul McCarthy quoted in ‘Paul McCarthy in Transformation,’ ‘art:21, art in the twenty-first century,’ Season 5, October 21, 2009, https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s5/paul-mccarthy-in-transformation-segment/