The Los Angeles artist Paul McCarthy’s “WS,†an NC-17 retelling of the Snow White fable at the Park Avenue Armory, has become the art institution’s second-most-attended exhibition. It has drawn 11,000 visitors since its opening two weeks ago despite its adults-only admission policy, armory officials said.
While it is still early in the show’s run (it continues through Aug. 4) the numbers are encouraging for the Armory, which has never presented a show with such challenging material - videotaped scenes of nudity, plentiful faked violence and explicit sexual acts - before. The exhibition, which has drawn mixed reviews, has tended to attract a younger crowd, said Rebecca Robertson, the armory’s president and executive producer. (She declined to say what the armory’s best-attended exhibition has been, saying the institution did not want to be seen as comparing artists box-office-style. But the show is believed to be “the event of a thread,†a participatory show involving swings by the artist Ann Hamilton, which ran from Dec. 5, 2012, through Jan. 6, 2013.)
For “WS†the Armory, which has developed a reputation as a family-and-tourist friendly destination, made the unusual decision, with Mr. McCarthy’s agreement, to restrict visitors to those over 17. Ms. Robertson said the reaction to the show, judging by written comments left by visitors, has tended to go to extremes, from outright disgust (“I can’t stand itâ€) to awe (“Brechtian.â€)
“There’s a much narrower potential audience for this than for most things we’ve done before,†she added, “so I think the attendance we’re seeing is very strong.â€
