Paul McCarthy's latest exhibition, titled "A&E," is on view at Bowman Hal gallery in Madrid, part of the SOLO CONTEMPORARY initiative founded by a Spanish collector couple. The show features large-scale works on paper and videos created in collaboration with German actress Lilith Stangenberg, exploring role-play, performance, and the blurred lines between art and entertainment. The acronym "A&E" alludes to historical pairs like Adam and Eve or Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, as well as "Arts & Entertainment." The works stem from private encounters between McCarthy and Stangenberg, with drawings serving as storyboards for videos that capture their improvisational, trance-like interactions.
This exhibition matters because it showcases the ongoing evolution of one of America's most influential living artists, Paul McCarthy, whose provocative practice consistently challenges boundaries between performance, drawing, and video. The collaboration with Hauser & Wirth, McCarthy's long-standing gallery, and the unique venue—a converted printing house that also houses a bookshop, cinema, and music club—underscores the growing trend of immersive, multidisciplinary art spaces. The show's thematic engagement with psychoanalysis (Wilhelm Reich) and cinema (Liliana Cavani's "The Night Porter") highlights McCarthy's enduring interest in power, sexuality, and mass psychology, reaffirming his relevance in contemporary art discourse.