No doubt by now you’ve seen pictures of the 80-foot, inflatable green butt plug in Paris. Overnight on Friday, October 17, vandals deflated “Tree,” as it was called, and some reports cite artist Paul McCarthy as saying that it will be re-inflated, other says it will not.
McCarthy created and installed “Tree” as a part of the city’s annual art fair, FIAC, and the giant sex toy loomed over Paris’ historic Place Vendome, close to a column commemorating Napoleon, who was Europe’s pain in the butt for a decade. Pun intended? I don’t know, but it’s funny, don’t you think?
Pictures of the huge butt plug immediately began popping up around the world, and at least a few Parisians are not happy to be the butt of the world’s jokes. McCarthy has been publicly slapped several times by people offended by his work. A group called Printemps Francais protested McCarthy’s “Tree” with a tweet: “Place Vendome disfigured! Paris humiliated!”
But this is not the first time McCarthy has left people scratching their heads at his odd ball art. In April 2013 in Hong Kong, McCarthy erected a 51-foot-high, inflatable heap of poop called “Complex Pile,” which was part of an outdoor art project called “Mobile M+: Inflation!” A sudden downpour eventually destroyed the giant balloon sculpture leaving a crumpled brown mess on the ground.
In 2008, a similar installation called “Complex Shit” was blown from its outdoor display in Bern, Switzerland and brought down power lines.
And finally, anally obsessed McCarty erected “Santa Claus” in Rotterdam in 2011. The concrete statue costing 180,000 Euros features a Santa Claus holding a three-bump butt plug in one hand and a bell in the other. And that statue is still in place.
Ah … you’ve got to love the wacky world of art.
