Description:

Edward Kienholz
(American, 1927–1994)
Assemblage, circa 1956
mixed media wood assemblage in artist's frame
signed lower right KIENHOLZ

  • Provenance: Footnote:
    An American artist of unwavering originality, critical insight, and notoriety, Edward Kienholz created powerful work that reflected upon contemporary social and political issues of late-20th-century America. He created life-size three-dimensional tableaux and immersive environments, composed out of the discarded detritus he found at yard sales and flea markets. Although he is best known for his contributions to the development of postwar sculptural practices, Kienholz was also a key promoter of the Los Angeles avant-garde.

    Just after his arrival in California, Kienholz quickly became embedded in the burgeoning Los Angeles art scene, acting not only as a prominent visual artist but also as an art dealer, gallerist, and curator. In August 1956, he founded the short-lived NOW Gallery in the Turnabout Theater, where he organized exhibitions of work by local artists. In 1957 he cofounded the Ferus Gallery with curator Walter Hopps, who would later become the director of the Pasadena Museum of Art. According to their official contract, written out on a hotdog wrapper, Hopps selected the gallery's artists while Kienholz oversaw the space's day-to-day management.

    The artist and poet Robert Alexander was also a central, although unofficial, collaborator in the gallery's programming and administration. From its founding in 1957 through its closing in 1966, Ferus (whose name derives from the Latin word for "wild beast") held a reputation for showcasing new and provocative art. It attracted a diverse following from various facets of the Californian avant-garde, acquiring a reputation as a gathering place for Beat poets and emerging artists including Richard Diebenkorn and Ed Ruscha. Two artists whose ideas and whose work in assemblages had a particularly strong influence on Kienholz were Bruce Conner and Wallace Berman. In 1957, Ferus was raided and temporarily shut down by the Los Angeles Police Department due to the "obscene" content of an exhibition of Conner's art.

    Kienholz left his post at Ferus in 1958 to devote his attention to his artistic practice and was succeeded by the important Pop art dealer Irving Blum (under whose stewardship Andy Warhol's soup-can paintings were publicly exhibited at Ferus for the very first time in 1962). Kienholz would continue to participate in Ferus's events, showing his work on several occasions before it closed down in 1966.
  • Dimensions: 28 x 35 1/2in (71 x 90cm)
  • Medium: mixed media wood assemblage in artist's frame
  • Condition: Framed in aluminum over artist's rustic wooden frame. 29 x 36 in. (74 x 92 cm.). Crazing and craquelure to surface. Scattered abrasions and some surface soiling.

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July 17, 2024 10:00 AM PDT
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