The internationally acclaimed contemporary artist Paul McCarthy is the subject of a solo exhibition titled Paul McCarthy: Head Space, Drawings 1963-2019 at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles through May 10, 2020. Celebrated for his works that encompass a wide spectrum of genres including performance, video, installation, sculpture, photography, and drawing, McCarthy explores ideas of omnipresent capitalist culture along with the cynical aspects of crowd psychology. This comprehensive survey endeavors to show the artist’s drawings from the last five decades of his practice, which were vital in establishing McCarthy’s artistic vocabulary. 

In this exhibition, McCarthy introduces a large body of work spanning over 600 drawings which employ a range of materials such as charcoal and graphite to more unorthodox ones including ketchup and peanut butter. Since the 1970s, the artist’s drawings which originated as part of the working process have transformed into an integral part of his sculptures, installations, and performances. McCarthy’s artistic vocabulary, mainly represented by his drawings, bestows new principles into the existing structure of nature and society through methods of duplication, magnification, reduction, distortion, and conjunction. On view at the exhibition are works such as Dopwhite, WS (2009), part of a series inspired by the Walt Disney animation ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ (1937), the video performance CSSC Coach Stage Stage Coach (2017), and drawings from the artist’s ongoing project, NV Night Vater (2019-). Meanwhile, DelMonico Books will be publishing a catalogue on the exhibition, consisting of over 400 drawings and an artist interview.