The Chocolate Factory...

2:19 p.m.

Artist Paul McCarthy is currently exhibiting at Paris' Monnaie an installation entitled "Chocolate Factory", which pretends to criticize the exaggerated consumption of this time of the year. McCarthy, who lives in Los Angeles and will turn 70 in 2015, wants his perfomances, installations and sculptures to show the dark side of Disney and Hollywood. His aim is to expose the consumer society of West USA.

For this first exhibition in Paris he designed an installation in which the visitors take part. At the entrance, up the stairs, we are welcomed by huge inflatable Christmas trees (a modernist sculpture that looks rather like a sexual object).

Chocolate Factory, by Paul McCarthy

Materials: inflatable vynil / Measures: 7 x 2 x 2 mts each (aprox)

Monnaie de Paris, 2014

Then, room after room, the visitor gets inside the world imagined by McCarthy: a modest architecture that contrasts with the opulence of this 18th century Palace, and where hundreds of chocolate Santas and Pine trees are being produced. The producción is controlled by performers/workers, dressed like the elves that help Santa with the toy making.

Chocolate Factory, by Paul McCarthy

Materials: machines, chocolate, performers / Variable measures

Monnaie de Paris, 2014

From there on, the absurd begins. We discover the beds where the workers take turns to rest so production is never stopped. The beds are surrounded by thousand boxes of chocolate figures. This is when the installation becomes overwhelming and we seek the exit.

Chocolate Factory, by Paul McCarthy

Materials: machines, chocolate, furniture, beds, mattresses / Variable measures

Monnaie de Paris, 2014

In this chaos, a video of the artist is projected, showing him in a state of alienation, while writing senseless words in a random way. McCarthy takes us to a world that has lost its mind in over-production, where all that matters is producing the chocolate figures.

Chocolate Factory, de Paul McCarthy

The only way out is to take this exhibition with humour. The instalaron is a mise-en-scene where everyone takes part, from the workers controlling production to the ladies selling the chocolates at the exit and the visitors that can buy those unlimited editions figures of Santa...