This is the first publication to explore the role of mirrors, spinning, and “neurotic” architecture––a feeling of psychological breakdown––in the work of one of America’s most important contemporary artists, Paul McCarthy (b. 1945). The book is published in conjunction with a major exhibition at the Whitney, for which McCarthy is creating two new installations to appear alongside his Bang Bang Room (1992) and two recently rediscovered film loops (1966, 1971).

 

Each work involves a room structure that the viewer can step into and experience—often becoming disoriented as either the floor or entire structure spins, or as walls fold inward and outward. By comparing McCarthy’s use of rotational movement and visual effects to that of other artists of the 1960s and