Marlene McCarty
"WEED: Entropic Anticipation", 2020-21
Graphite and ballpoint pen on paper in artist’s frame
Unframed: 53 x 38 inches (134.6 x 96.5 cm)
Framed 62 ½ x 47 inches (158.8  119.4 cm)
Courtesy of the Artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York

Selected by Hilton Als

Marlene McCarty (b. 1957, Lexington, Kentucky) has worked across various media since the 1980s. She was a member of the AIDS activist collective Gran Fury and was the co-founder of the transdisciplinary design studio Bureau with Donald Moffett. Using everyday materials such as graphite, ballpoint pen, colored pencil, and watercolor, McCarty probes issues ranging from sexuality formation and social structures to parricide and infanticide. A major survey exhibition of her work, Hard-Keepers, was presented at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin in 2013. McCarty’s recent investigations into plants and their complex ecocultural role within society have inspired her latest drawings alongside artistic explorations into earthworks in the form of garden installations. Such ecological projects currently on view include INTO THE WEEDS, an ongoing presentation in collaboration with Jacqueline McLean at Naturezone in Bequia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and AGAIN, a participatory earthwork sculpture and garden permanently installed at Silo City in Buffalo. McCarty plans to install a temporary witch’s garden in conjunction with an upcoming project at Tabakelera in San Sebastian, Spain, opening in 2025. McCarty’s work is in the collection of major institutions including the Brooklyn Museum, NY; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; and Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland. McCarty studied at the University of Cincinnati, College of Design, Architecture and Art, from 1975 to 1977 and Schule für Gestaltung, Basel, Switzerland, from 1978-83. She currently lives and works in New York.