Caroline McCarthy

Parker's Box is delighted to present Caroline McCarthy's second solo exhibition at the gallery.

Regular visitors to Parker's Box will remember the artist's previous large-scale installation, which at first sight appeared to be a presentation of various electronic devices, cameras etc, of uncertain origin and unknown design. The realization followed that: the sleek objects on the shelves are actually plastic detergent bottles and fast food containers retrieved from the local trash and painted with enamel paint. [Caroline McCarthy] encourages a closer look at what everyday things look like...adding further conceptual facets to this promising artist's work. Holland Cotter, New York Times 03/08/2002

In her new exhibition, Caroline McCarthy takes this preoccupation further, creating a new conceptual context with which to focus the spectator's vision on things overlooked and undervalued. The artist uses a hijacking or détournement of the notion of the 18th Century Grand Tour, to reverse its grandiose subject matter by concentrating on the detritus left behind by our consumer society. In the visits she made to Brooklyn in preparation of Grand Detour, she carefully documented the waste, weeds and debris found on the sidewalks and in the gutters of the neighborhood of Parker's Box- (Grand Street and the adjoining area). These scenes of the overlooked have been rendered in exquisite watercolors, drawings and etchings with the care and precision characteristic of vedute, thus instilling these lowly by-products of our society with a new status in the world.

Pressetext

Caroline McCarthy
Grand Detour: Vedute and Other Curious Observations Off the Grand Route