Ten years after ‘Tree’ the 80ft inflatable sculpture that sparked controversy when installed in Paris, Paul McCarthy revisits its iconic form in a provocative new artist edition and solo exhibition at Union Gallery, London: Tree Green Plug Bottle Whisky Bucket Black.
Created in collaboration with McLean’s Artist Malts, this limited-edition artwork marries contemporary sculpture with rare Scotch whisky in a new form.
A New Multiple by Paul McCarthy
Paul McCarthy (b. 1945, Utah, USA) is one of the most influential and subversive voices in contemporary American art. Known for his transgressive performances, videos, and visceral sculptures, McCarthy’s work interrogates culture, taboo, and mass media through satire, and absurdity.
The project began in 2014, when artist Liam Scully visited McCarthy in Los Angeles shortly after the ‘Tree’ installation, it’s vandalism and subsequent removal in Paris. The two discussed creating a whisky-based edition, and McCarthy proposed transforming the Tree form into a sculptural vessel — one that would both contain and become the whisky.
Drawing on the modernist legacy of Constantin Brancusi’s Endless Column and Hans Arp’s organic abstraction, McCarthy distils Tree into a sleek, hand-blown Murano glass bottle. Its opaque green hue — suspended within a layer of crystal — echoes the original inflatable’s colour and form, emphasizing the sculpture’s lineage.
Working closely with Adriano Berengo of the world-renowned Berengo Studio in Murano, Italy — a beacon of excellence in contemporary glassmaking — McCarthy has realized a whisky bottle of exquisite craftsmanship.
The bottle is housed within a custom black steel bucket. Industrial and stark, perhaps a nod to early video works – notably Ma Bell (1971) which featured a comparable vessel, marking a subtle shift between eras. McCarthy plays on packaging as disposable, yet here signed and numbered beneath the steel lid, it is integral to the bucket as value, serving as both container and pedestal.
Whisky As Sculpture
Inside the bottle: a 13-year-old, heavily peated single malt Scotch whisky from Bunnahabhain Distillery, Islay. Distilled on 20 January 2005 and aged over 11 years in a sherry butt, the whisky underwent an 18-month final maturation in a sherry-infused octave before bottling at cask strength (55.2%) on 4 March 2019 — exclusively for Paul McCarthy.
Limited Edition
The Edition (Nos. 1–36) includes a suite of four large-scale lithographs (76 x 106 cm unframed), printed by world renowned Polígrafa Obra Gràfica in Barcelona. These expressive drawings were created at McCarthy’s own dining table in Los Angeles during a spirited whisky tasting session with Liam Scully, Director of McLean’s Artist Malts.
During this session, McCarthy sampled whiskies from eight Scottish distilleries, ultimately favouring a heavily peated, sherry-finished profile — leading to the selection of the rare Bunnahabhain cask. Three additional drawings from this session informed the design of the bottle itself, making this edition a fully immersive artwork — one that blurs the boundaries between art object, ritual, and rare spirit.