{"id":504537,"date":"2026-10-22T19:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T19:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/504537\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T19:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T19:24:10","slug":"paul-mccarthys-chocolate-factory-visits-l-a-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/504537\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul McCarthy\u2019s Chocolate Factory Visits L.A. For the First Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

The contemporary artist will transform the Performance Art Museum in Chinatown, into a functional chocolate factory before it opens in January<\/p>\n

Willy Wonka with a wicked sense of humor, artist Paul McCarthy is bringing his provocative chocolate factory to Los Angeles\u2019 Performance Art Museum (PAM) before it opens in January 2027.<\/p>\n

McCarthy\u2019s Chocolate Factory, which will benefit the museum, transforms its industrial Chinatown warehouse into a functional chocolate factory. The installation will run Nov. 20 through Dec. 26. The chocolate factory previously visited New York and Paris, but as McCarthy said in a statement, it looks different each time as the exhibition space changes.<\/p>\n

Museum workers will cast hundreds of McCarthy\u2019s chocolate sculptures \u201cSanta with Tree Plug\u201d and \u201cTree Plug\u201d each day, gradually accumulating throughout the space. McCarthy\u2019s chocolate factory will partner with Beverly Hills chocolatier andSons for the installation.<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: Photo by Etienne Potter. Courtesy Paul McCarthy and Hauser & Wirth<\/p>\n

McCarthy is a contemporary L.A. artist known for working across mediums, including performance, photography, film, sculpture, drawing, painting and food. His chocolate sculptures reference the upcoming holiday season and explore themes of spectacle, desire and commerce. McCarthy has used this same image of Santa Claus in his previous installations, as well as the Plug to represent the Christmas tree and sexual reference.<\/p>\n

Previous iterations of the chocolate factory took place at Maccarone Gallery in New York in 2007, and later, at Monnaie de Paris, at the French mint in 2014. His work has been polarizing, as he was accosted and his sculpture \u201cTree\u201d was vandalized in Paris before he took it down after only 48 hours, according to The Independent<\/a>. This led to a protest of artists and even the French president at the time, Fran\u00e7ois Hollande, speaking out in support of his work, according to Hyperallergic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"\"Credit: Photo by Etienne Potter. Courtesy Paul McCarthy and Hauser & Wirth<\/p>\n

The latest factory space in L.A. at PAM will introduce the museum\u2019s programming and purpose, highlighting performance art of all kinds, to Angelenos.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat better way to preview the museum\u2019s new home than with this special project expanding what performance can be?\u201d PAM Director Samuel Vasquez said in a statement. \u201cWe\u2019re honored to host Chocolate Factory as a special fundraiser on the eve of the museum\u2019s opening and to benefit our inaugural programming.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The contemporary artist will transform the Performance Art Museum in Chinatown, into a functional chocolate factory before it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[195084,13005,16190,48,52,51,47,50,49,145782,195085,195086],"class_list":["post-504537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-andsons-chocolatiers","tag-chinatown","tag-chocolate","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-paul-mccarthy","tag-performance-art","tag-performance-art-museum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}