Two of McCarthy's single-channel video works have been in Moderna Museet's collection for several years: Cultural Soup (1987) and Family Tyranny (1987), both made in collaboration with Mike Kelley (b. 1954). In the spring of 2005, two additional single-channel video works by McCarthy were brought into the collection, Black and White Tapes (1970-75) and Fresh Acconci (1995, also made in collaboration with Mike Kelley). These works were all acquired through Electronic Arts Intermix. It is not a policy of Moderna Museet to buy works from contemporary exhibitions that they organize, but the museum does so when possible. Works commissioned by the museum for exhibitions are considered an acquisition priority.

While working on this project McCarthy showed af Petersens many notebooks from early in his career. They contain outlines and instructions for numerous works that were never realized. Some of these ideas might actually be made for the exhibition, as commissions by Moderna Museet. According to af Petersens, ñWe will try to put new light on these works and maybe realize some of them and also deal with them in the catalogue.î According to af Petersens, it would be especially interesting to acquire such works. As af Petersens explains, ñVery few works remain from the early days, but he has shown me a hundred early notebooks with a lot of instructional works and propositions for works, outlined. He said that maybe he was lazy, but he felt that the work didn't have to be done somehow. This was during the heyday of Conceptual art and also he didn't have funds to realize some of the larger projects. So they just became works on paper.î

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