But nothing actually works. Sinks, made from plaster and paint in various shapes and sizes, have no plumbing and just two round holes, like startled, watchful eyes, where the faucets should be. Drains are implanted directly into walls like surveillance devices. Any child would want to weep in this bleak, unsafe house. A playpen is sadistically distorted.
Newspapers carry reports of disasters tucked among wedding announcements.
The only evidence of a parental presence is a man's hairy leg, molded from wax, fitted with individual hairs, dressed in a sock and a shoe, and protruding from a wall at floor level. It's as if the house had landed on him, Wicked Witch-style. His most provocative individual pieces, which have raised their share of dust over the years, have not been included here. When he exhibited the designs at the Hirshhorn in 1990, black museum personnel protested. Also absent are his most explicitly erotic sculptures, notably the series of cast male legs and buttocks, often nude, emerging from walls.