McDermott & McGough

American contemporary art duo McDermott & McGough has been active since the early 1980s, and they're currently based in Dublin, Ireland, and New York City, USA. The duo consists of visual artists David McDermott (b. 1952, Hollywood, CA) and Peter McGough (b. 1958, Syracuse, NY), who came to prominence for a 15-year-long project, in which they consistently re-enacted lives of "Victorian era fine gentlemen." Between 1980 and 1995, McDermott & McGough dressed, lived and worked as mid-XXth-century characters, wearing top hats and period-accurate attire and residing in a candle-lit East Village townhouse (without electricity, and scrupulously refurbished to imitate the era's environment). They produced paintings, sculptures, photographs and films implemented with antiquated and obsolete tools and techniques: cyanotype and gum bichromate film processing, hand-crank cameras, etc. David McDermott and Peter McGough attended the Syracuse University in different years; however, they hadn't met until they both moved to New York City in the early 1980s. They soon became part of the blossoming East Village art scene alongside other renowned contemporary artists, such as Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Jeff Koons. Julian Schnabel was one of the duo's earliest "patrons" and proponents, helping McDermott & McGough to promote their "back-in-time" act at local galleries and venues. Their duo works have appeared in solo and group exhibitions at Pat Hearn Gallery, Whitney Museum Of American Art, New Museum Of Contemporary Art, Centre Pompidou and other prominent museums and galleries.