"Tomato Head"

• "Tomato Head" is a 1994 work done by Paul McCarthy. It is a mannequin that has a giant tomato in place of a head. The tomato, complete with eyes, nose, and mouth isn't exactly what it appears at first. The objects making up the facial features actually consist of many different objects including, rubber penises, rubber vaginas, fiberglass blocks, garden tools, and fake carrots. When it was originally located in Los Angeles, "extra accessories lay strewn across the gallery floor, a corpus of shared parts from which untold identities might be constructed."
• This work is interesting when it comes to it's symbolization, but I believe it is relating human beings to regular objects. Objects that make us go round. Food, building blocks, genitalia essential for life, all seem to relate to an aspect of live or a life worth living. But is can also be interpreted as a sort of mockery, the large vegetable head seems to poke fun at the essentials of like, and the use of penises and vaginas is also surprising but also adds a bit of unique comic relief.
• Once again, I'm stumped when it comes to relating this work of art with another piece I am familiar with, but if I had to pick one, it would coincidentally be another McCarthy work, entitled "Olive Oil". It takes this almost cartoon figure and morphs and molds it into a mockery of life. The tomato headed mannequin is obviously a fictional being that helps to act as a segway between real life and the imaginary, as does a cartoon figure such as Olive Oil.
• I picked this work because it seemed kind of trippy. That kind of art is what strikes my fancy. The level of uniqueness is through the roof and I could literally go on and on about what I think this sculpture is trying to portrait. I may never get the correct answer, if there even is one, but the thinking is the fun part, it makes you think in strange ways and it intellectually grasps you and refuses to let you go.