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Artist Whose Work Inspired a Public Beating in Paris Gets Solo Chicago Show

By Sam Cholke | October 18, 2015 4:26am | Updated on October 19, 2015 8:37am
 Paul McCarthy's
Paul McCarthy's "Tree" sculpture inspired a passerby in Paris to punch him in the face repeatedly. The artist is getting his first solo show in Chicago at the Renaissance Society.
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HYDE PARK — The often-controversial artist Paul McCarthy is getting his first solo show in Chicago at the Renaissance Society.

McCarthy will show 75 drawings from his 2013 satire “White Snow,” an often lewd and sometimes X-rated satirical installation mixing images of suburbia and Disney’s “Snow White” at Park Avenue Armory in New York City.

“Sex and mythology, bodies and violence, death and humor — these works are at once familiar and repulsive,” the gallery on the University of Chicago campus said. “With his characteristic irreverent wit, McCarthy melds the iconic 1937 Walt Disney depiction of Snow White with the darker forces of the fairy tale’s earlier incarnations.”

McCarthy, 70, is often a controversial figure and last year he was punched in the face repeatedly by an angry passerby on the streets of Paris while installing his inflatable “Tree” sculpture, which looked strikingly similar to a sex toy.

McCarthy will be at the Renaissance Society, 5811 S. Ellis Ave., to talk about his work with writer and critic Donatien Grau at 5 p.m. Nov. 8 for an opening reception.

A series of talks and video screenings of McCarthy’s work are scheduled throughout the run of the exhibit, which closes Jan. 24.

A full schedule is available at renaissancesociety.org.

All events are free and open to the public.

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