John Chamberlain
Photo: Robert McKeever, courtesy Gagosian Gallery
Crinkled toilet paper. A crushed cigarette pack. Tousled, creased, used bed sheets.  All of these forms were integral inspirational elements in John Chamberlain’s sculptural process. He coined the term “articulate wadding” in reference to the artful randomness and unpredictability arriving from the transformation of an object or material. Originally from Rochester Indiana, John Chamberlain spent his final years in New York in his elaborate studio on Shelter Island. Chamberlain passed away this December 2011, at the age of 84. The retrospective at the Guggenheim, titled John Chamberlain: Choices, presents six decades of his artwork, installed chronologically equalling 97 objects in total.  The result is, as almost always in the rotunda of the Guggenheim, quite dizzying and beautifully curated by Susan Davidson, Senior Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
John Chamberlain, Dooms Day Flotilla, 1982
Painted and chromium-plated steel
Photograph by Katy Hamer
Courtesy of the Guggenheim, NY
 At a time when painting was a focal point for Abstract Expressionist artists, Chamberlain, who was briefly trained as a painter, chose instead to use discarded car parts to make sculptures. The early works were constructed of fenders, bumpers, hoods and chassis having been utilized within the constraints of original form and color. Later, the artist would find that he needed to interact more with the car parts which resulted in scraping, sanding, dripping and spray painting with the ultimate goal of crushing and manipulating the pieces into a sculpture.  The artist thought of the pieces in each work to be the result of a sexual act between objects, that fit together as if by divine intervention as explained by Susan Davidson during the press preview. If the result of a sexual act frozen in time, Chamberlain’s sculptures were also made in direct response to abstract painting and he admitted to being influenced by then peers Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline. His sculptures were the result of lifting the biomorphic forms found in abstract painting from flat, two-dimensional space into a three-dimensional environment the viewer has the option to walk around and have a different, intimate relationship with the work. However, in stark contrast to the intimacy of experience, John Chamberlain was quite clever when choosing titles. He made references to objects, people, and places in his titles, giving additional, if sometimes literal, sometimes completely absurd, context to each piece. Titles such as Marilyn Monroe 1963, Rooster Starfoot 1976, and Toasted Hitlers (from E.J.) 1977, are all both as informing as they can be baffling when associating a title with its corresponding sculpture. It was in the choices in naming works that the artist was able to reveal a bit of his own personality and sense of humor taking himself and the work seriously, but also being a bit tongue in cheek.
John Chamberlain, Rooster Starfoot, 1976
Painted and chromium-plated steel
Photograph by Katy Hamer
Courtesy of the Guggenheim, NY

Walking through the exhibition grants the viewer the opportunity to think of the endless possibilities of twisted form and color scraps that when combined compositionally make sense. One should also pay attention to the varying degrees of light streaming through the frosted skylight at the vertex of the rotunda. Chamberlain chose to alter his color as his craft and practice evolved. He also occasionally  used materials beyond car parts, including foam and polymer resin. The resin sculptures, including Luna, Luna, Luna (In Memory of Elaine Chamberlain), 1970 are ethereal and while similar in visual, structural form, these works tend to be a bit more ghostly in appearance and seem to capture the impossibility of morphing into a transparent moon stone.

Early in his career, John Chamberlain worked with gallerist and art dealer Allan Stone, who recognized the importance of Abstract Expressionism and supported many of the pertinent artists involved.  It was many years ago at the Allan Stone Gallery where I first came across one of Chamberlain’s sculptures in a group exhibition. Accidentally mistaken for trash at times, I remember my initial confusion at viewing the sculpture which then quickly transformed into a revelation upon recognizing the painterly qualities and strong compositional choices. John Chamberlain was a painters sculptor or a sculptors painter. His career and body of work has made an important mark with the context of art history and while an integral part of Abstract Expressionism his work is often also associated with Minimalism and Pop Art. The exhibition at the Guggenheim, is a comprehensive peek into the life of an individual, driven by a desire to make objects, void of narrative but ripe with a contemplative, formalistic structure in its search for anti-formalism.

John Chamberlain, Luna, Luna, Luna (In Memory of Elaine Chamberlain), 1970
Mineral-coated synthetic polymer resin
Photograph by Katy Hamer
Image courtesy of the Guggenheim, NY

John Chamberlain: Choices is on view at the Guggenheim, New York until May 13th, 2012.

More soon!
xo