Piccadilly Circus 2003

Piccadilly Circus was produced as the opening for the Hauser & Wirth gallery in London. This performance/installation piece took place in the basement of a bank in London where, at first, McCarthy had no interest in doing anything with the building. While checking the space out, McCarthy and his son came up with the idea for Piccadilly circus:

"In the basement were vaults, with barred doors and thick concrete walls: a kind of jail. Upstairs were executive offices, one of which for some reason had been called the 'American room.' My son, Damon, whom I have been working with, said, "Why don't we put Bush upstairs and bin Laden in the basement?" I instinctively responded, "And the Queen Mother goes in the middle."

The idea began in 2002 right before America was heading off to war with Iraq. The characters were made to resemble important figures of this time, President Bush, Osama Bin Laden, and the Queen Mother. They were overly cartoonish and puppet like with over sized masks and clownish hands and feet. The video performances show three different versions of the characters participating in crazy scenes like parties and wild eating rituals.

President Bush has long been a subject of McCarthy's works. Many focus on just Bush's head as lifeless, lying on the ground, others portray him in degrading, sometimes sexual, positions with random animals. McCarthy has always used the media and the idea of the Western world is his artwork, usually attempting to uncover or reveal the darker, less talked about side. In Piccadilly Circus he is hinting at some secret, special bond between certain leaders, an almost mutually abusive bond in a way, with how the characters interact with one another. Bush painting things on Bin Laden's face, the so called 'tea-party' with those two and the Queen Mother, among other scenes. "Piccadilly Circus is about Bush but also about reconfiguring images of leadership and buffoonery. Some of its themes are similar to others I've explored over the last thirty years. There's a kind of obsessive behavior that gets repeated. I've been criticized for this, which seems odd to me. In my work, one of the returning themes is futility. But the expression of the futile produces a sort of satisfaction. Futility itself becomes a kind of completion. It's a belief in art" (McCarthy).

McCarthy's Piccadilly Circus has the feeling of an Andy Warhol piece. It takes something we are all familiar with, the President or a Campbell soup can, and makes it into something completely different from what we know. The Same with Jeff Koons. He took everyday figures, Michael Jackson, the Pink Panther, and turned them into artwork by placing them into awkward situations, situations out of the norm for those figures. I have found Paul McCarthy's artwork very interesting. Each piece tells a story that has in some way always been there but never been brought to attention. Obviously, we have all made the connection somehow between the war in Iraq, Osama Bin Laden and President Bush, but in Piccadilly Circus, McCarthy has sort of thrown it wide open and into our faces.

1000 words: Paul McCarthy talks about Piccadilly Circus, 2003 ArtForum Find Articles at BNET." Find Articles at BNET News Articles, Magazine Back Issues & Reference Articles on All Topics. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. .