An exclusive preview of ’White Snow’ by Paul McCarthy

Hot sun blisters the parking lot of a Los Angeles sound stage, about 30 miles north of Disneyland. A gaggle of actors outfitted as dwarves with phallic bulbous noses and coloured tights stand in the shade, smoking. My first thought was that this was a completely . Actually, it was a lunch break from McCarthy's demanding day of shooting for his project on Snow White. McCarthy himself is playing a character he calls Walt Paul, and has been transformed into a middle-aged Walt Disney.
A major artist who has redefined the nature of sculpture and performance, McCarthy announced himself with his installation', part of the game-changing 1992 show 'Helter Skelter' at LA's Museum of Contemporary Art. This is his most ambitious project to date. For one thing, McCarthy bought this 60,000 sq ft sound stage. As he says, 'it is really risky - a museum would look at this and see a storage and archival problem. I have to be real and say: 'Paul, you have made a piece that probably won't be sold.'
Any doubt that the piece will be a difficult sell is dismissed on entering the building to see a giant forest (a recurring theme in his work) of leafless trees and ferns. It is a lovely but entirely artificial sight, and the illusion is occasionally broken by gaping holes in the tree trunks, left by the moulding process. Furthermore, costumes once worn by Walt or by White Snow are strewn along the path, and there is a bottle of erotic lubricant under a bush.
McCarthy leads me along the path. We come across the naked figure of a woman, a rubber life cast of one of the actresses playing White Snow. 'This object was fucked,' he explains. 'It is not a real human. It may have something to do with how we see reality and desire,' he continues. 'And art. This is a kind of hyper-reality of desire. A Disneyesque landscape that does not exist. A dreamscape. And in the middle is my house.'
Sure enough, McCarthy's childhood home - a modest bungalow with white lace curtains in Salt Lake City, Utah - has been reconstructed at three-quarter scale. It is just a stage set façade, but in other sets McCarthy has had every room painstakingly reconstructed, and the interior completely trashed: the kitchen is slathered with chocolate; in the parlour, naked life casts of White Snow and Walt are splattered with what looks like blood.
At the Park Avenue Armory in New York, where the (as in White Snow) goes on view on 19 June, viewers will see the forest, the house and the sets from ground level or from a mezzanine, but will not be able to walk through it. Instead, they will watch the action on giant screens. McCarthy's earliest performances, in the 1960s and 1970s, were influenced by the man who invented the Happening. These performances were improvisational and that remains McCarthy's comfort zone.
The complex relationship between the older Walt and the younger White Snow recalls another film completed by McCarthy last year, which will be on view at Hauser & Wirth New York from 20 June, along with some of McCarthy's White Snow drawings or sculptures. Based on the film , it features messy erotic encounters between director Nicholas Ray, played by McCarthy, and the Natalie Wood character, played by Elyse Poppers, with James Franco in the James Dean role.
However, 'White Snow' remains the more personal piece, exploring McCarthy's past and Mormon upbringing. Yet he insists that this is more than autobiography. 'It is an intentional work of art. You need more than psychology to make a work of art,' he says. 'I think it is not so much about who I am today, but me through my history. There is something poignant about the 1950s when Disney formed Disneyland as dreamscape. It's about a kind of enjoyment and dream, as opposed to accepting who we are in reality.'
The full, unabridged version of this article appeared in W*171
Editor: Michael Reynolds. Special thanks to Andrea Schwan
'White Snow' by Paul McCarthy
'White Snow' by Paul McCarthy
'White Snow' by Paul McCarthy
'White Snow' by Paul McCarthy
'White Snow' by Paul McCarthy
White Snow' by Paul McCarthy
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
-
In Shanghai, Hermès conjures a ‘cosmopolitan explorer’ for its one-off show on the Huangpu River
Nadège Vanhée, artistic director of Hermès’ womenswear collections, presented ‘The Second Chapter’ of her A/W 2025 collection earlier this evening (13 June 2025) against the futuristic skyline of Shanghai
-
Out of office: the Wallpaper* editors’ picks of the week
It was a jam-packed week for the Wallpaper* staff, entailing furniture, tech and music launches and lots of good food – from afternoon tea to omakase
-
Peugeot brings back a classic performance badge for the electric era: meet the E-208 GTi
Peugeot has unveiled the new E-208 GTi, a performance EV designed to hark back to a golden age of compact sports cars
-
Out of office: the Wallpaper* editors’ picks of the week
It was a jam-packed week for the Wallpaper* staff, entailing furniture, tech and music launches and lots of good food – from afternoon tea to omakase
-
Out of office: what the Wallpaper* editors have been up to this week
This week saw the Wallpaper* team jet-setting to Jordan and New York; those of us left in London had to make do with being transported via the power of music at rooftop bars, live sets and hologram performances
-
Photographer Geordie Wood takes a leap of faith with first film, Divers
Geordie Wood delved into the world of professional diving in Fort Lauderdale for his first film
-
New book celebrates 100 years of New York City landmarks where LGBTQ+ history took place
Marc Zinaman’s ‘Queer Happened Here: 100 Years of NYC’s Landmark LGBTQ+ Places’ is a vital tribute to queer culture
-
A major Takashi Murakami exhibition sees the world in kaleidoscopic colour
The Cleveland Art Museum presents 'Takashi Murakami 'Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow', exploring outrage and escapist fantasy
-
Ai Weiwei’s new public installation is coming soon to Four Freedoms State Park
‘Camouflage’ by Ai Weiwei will launch the inaugural Art X Freedom project in September 2025, a new programme to investigate social justice and freedom
-
Leonard Baby's paintings reflect on his fundamentalist upbringing, a decade after he left the church
The American artist considers depression and the suppressed queerness of his childhood in a series of intensely personal paintings, on show at Half Gallery, New York
-
Desert X 2025 review: a new American dream grows in the Coachella Valley
Will Jennings reports from the epic California art festival. Here are the highlights