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Paul Dreaming, Vertical, Horizontal

Paul McCarthy American
2005–2012
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
McCarthy explores the potential of the surrogate figure—an inanimate object with human characteristics—as a means of visualizing subjective experience and confronting mortality. Cast from the artist’s standing body (as evidenced by the figure’s flat feet and straight back) in 2005 and intended as a prop for one of his films, the figure went unused until 2012, when McCarthy decided to partially clothe and recline it on a padded lawn chair. By contrasting the seeming vitality of a vertical (grounded) body with the ambiguity of a horizontal one, the scene becomes one imaginable in a backyard setting, where the figure may be sleeping or in an unconscious state.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Paul Dreaming, Vertical, Horizontal
  • Artist: Paul McCarthy (American, born 1945)
  • Date: 2005–2012
  • Medium: Platinum silicone, clothing, plastic, foam, lawn chair
  • Dimensions: 24 3/8 × 70 7/8 × 28 in. (61.9 × 180 × 71.1 cm)
  • Classification: Sculpture
  • Credit Line: Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland
  • Rights and Reproduction: © Paul McCarthy, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art