In 2014, American artist Paul McCarthy was asked to design an artwork for the Place Vendôme in Paris, a stately square across from the French Ministry of Culture whose construction had been commissioned by the Sun King, Louis XIV.
McCarthy resolved to decorate the square, which previously housed a monument to Napoleon Bonaparte, with a giant, inflatable Christmas tree. Inspired by Constantin Brâncuși and Hans Arp, two abstract sculptors from the 20th century who blended Dadaism with primitive exoticism, the finished product reduced the Christmas tree down to its most basic shape—a shape which, coincidentally, looked less like a plant and more like a butt plug.
The work, simply titled Tree, sparked controversy overnight, with prude Parisians deeming the Ferris wheel-sized sex toy to be an inappropriate, even humiliating addition to their otherwise noble city. The outrage reached such heights that McCarthy was assaulted during an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde. Answering questions on the street, the artist was interrupted by a man who, after confirming he was indeed the creator, proceeded to punch him in the face.
Tree, Paul McCarthy’s monumental artwork at Place Vendôme in Paris, France. Photo: Chesnot/Getty Images.
“He hit me in the head, hard,” McCarthy later told The Hollywood Reporter. “He was screaming that I insulted France, but that was never my intention.” Later, vandals cut the artwork’s power and support straps, turning the Christmas tree into a deflated balloon.
To the city’s credit, many Parisians rushed to McCarthy’s defense. Jennifer Flay, the director of the organization that had commissioned Tree, said she was “embarrassed for France,” while Fleur Pellerin, then Minister of Culture, called the vandalism an “intolerable infringement of creative freedom.”
The most potent comment came from French President François Hollande, who issued a statement proclaiming, “France will always be on the side of artists, just as I am on the side of Paul McCarthy, whose work was sullied, no matter what one’s opinion of the piece may have been.”
Paul McCarthy’s Tree sits deflated at Place Vendome in Paris after an unidentified group of vandals cut the cables securing it to the ground, 2014. Photo: Chesnot/Getty Images.
This wasn’t the first time McCarthy had shocked audiences with phallic imagery. In 2001, he erected a bronze sculpture of Santa Claus holding a butt plug in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In both cases, the sex toys communicate his distaste of the holiday season and what it has come to represent. “Consumer culture is so destructive,” he told HighSnobiety in a 2021 interview that represented the first time he looked back on the failure—or success—of Tree, adding: “Santa Claus is the god of consumerism. It’s just so iconic for me; it’s a signifier of Western civilization.”
In the same interview, McCarthy showed off a collection of dead Christmas tree branches he keeps in his office. “There’s something about this living thing that we cut down and decorate in our living rooms,” he explained. “There’s something super fucked up about that, at least to me, and these things are grown in Christmas farms and then just whacked off.”
For an artist who specializes in generating shock and controversy, McCarthy doesn’t like it when his art goes viral. Once Tree had been deflated and destroyed, he decided not to put up another one. He had envisioned the piece as one big joke, and since that joke had now been told, there was no use in telling it again.
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