Detail View: Visual Resources Teaching Collection: Model 54

aahi0001795

Model 54

full view

1965

creation

Edward Kienholz (American, 1927-1994)

male

American sculptor. He attended Eastern Washington College of Education in Cheney, WA, and then Whitworth College in Spokane, WA, both for short periods, but received no formal art training. He then studied briefly at a number of other colleges in the West and in 1953 moved to Los Angeles, where two years later he had his first one-man show at the Cafe Galleria. In 1956 he opened the Now Gallery in Los Angeles, one of the city's first avant-garde galleries; on its closure in 1957 he opened the Ferus Gallery with the critic Walter Hopps. Having produced his first paintings and watercolours while still in high school, in 1954 Kienholz made his first wooden relief paintings. These consisted of odd pieces of wood nailed to a panel and then painted with a broom, for example Triptych (1956; Mr and Mrs R. Regehr priv. col., see 1966 exh. cat., p. 17). They were often painted in a murky brown to exaggerate their ugliness, through which Kienholz sought to investigate concepts of beauty. From the late 1950s he devoted himself to sculpture in the form of assemblage, often using the medium to voice social or political criticism. In History as Planter (1961; Los Angeles, CA, Co. Mus. A.), for example, he used a kiln, newspaper, mannequin parts and other objects to comment on the Holocaust and how, with time, such horrors merely become conversation pieces. In 1962 Kienholz exhibited his first 'tableau', or environmental assemblage, Roxy's (1961; R. Onnasch priv. col., see 1981 exh. cat., pp. 10–46), at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. Named after a brothel in Los Angeles, it recreates its subject through a series of furnished rooms filled with figures and other objects. Like many later tableaux it was set in a specific time, in this case 1943, and so had appropriate furnishings and details. The figures that populate it are deformed mannequins, like the brothel Madam whose head has been replaced by an animal skull; another figure, Cockeyed Jenny, was constructed from a pedal bin, bedpan, stool and mannequin legs. The incongruous juxtapositions in such tableaux invite comparisons with Surrealist objects produced in the 1930s. Though commenting on sexuality and the treatment of women, Roxy's is nevertheless not overtly moralistic, rather journalistic and descriptive. Throughout the 1960s Kienholz produced elaborate tableaux such as The Wait (1964–5; New York, Whitney), in which a clothed seated figure made of bones, surrounded by photographs and other memorabilia, presents a macabre image of an old, dying woman. In 1965, in order to overcome the cost of constructing tableaux without having first found a purchaser, Kienholz made his first 'concept tableau' in the form of a bronze plaque inscribed with its title and accompanied by a written description. For an additional fee this could later be realized as a drawing or full-scale tableau, or it could be resold in its conceptual form. The State Hospital (1966; Stockholm, Mod. Mus.), one of the few fully realized concept tableaux, was inspired by Kienholz's experience of working in a mental hospital in 1948. It consists of two figures cast from life, made of fibreglass and plaster with fish bowls for their heads, tied to bunk beds. From 1972 Kienholz worked in collaboration with his wife, Nancy Reddin Kienholz (b Los Angeles, CA, 9 Dec 1943), whom he acknowledged in 1981 should be given equal credit for the works. In 1973 they began to divide their time between Hope, ID, and Berlin. Their contact with Germany led to a number of tableaux that commented on Nazism, such as The Ladder (1976; Berlin, Neue N.G.), and also to works based on Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring. These works of the 1970s were often more controlled, suggestive and less obvious than their predecessors. In the 1980s they returned to tableaux with a more immediate impact, such as Portrait of a Mother with Past Affixed Also (1980–81; Minneapolis, MN, Walker A. Cent.), again using distorted mannequin figures.

20th century

Contemporary

assemblages

sculpture (visual works)

sculptures and installations

motor-driven assemblage of found objects

101 cm (H) x 99 cm (W) x 62 cm (D) without base

Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)

repository

605.1965.a-b

accession

New York, New York

© Museum of Modern Art, New York. Licensed for educational use via Scholars Resource: Davis Art Images

© Edward Kienholz

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