| Edward Kienholz | |
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Edward Kienholz photographed by Lothar Wolleh, 1970 |
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| Born | October 23, 1927 Fairfield, Washington |
| Died | June 10, 1994 (aged 66) Idaho |
| Nationality | American |
| Field | Installation art |
| Training | Self-taught |
Edward Kienholz (October 23, 1927 – June 10, 1994) was an American installation artist whose work was highly critical of aspects of modern life. From 1972 onwards, he assembled much of his artwork in close collaboration with his artistic partner and wife, Nancy Reddin Kienholz. Thoughout much of their career, the work of the Kienholzes was more appreciated in Europe than in their native United States, though American museums have featured their art more prominently since the 1990s.
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Edward Ralph Kienholz was born in Fairfield, Washington, in the eastern part of the state. He grew up on a farm, learning carpentry, drafting and mechanical skills. He studied at Eastern Washington College of Education and, briefly, at Whitworth College in Spokane, but did not receive any formal artistic training. After a series of odd jobs, working as an orderly in a psychiatric hospital, manager of a dance band, used car salesman, caterer, decorator and vacuum cleaner salesman, Kienholz settled in Los Angeles, where he became involved with the avant-garde art scene of the day.
In 1956, he opened the NOW Gallery, for which Michael Bowen designed the sign;[1] that year he met grad student Walter Hopps, who owned the Syndell Gallery. They co-organized the All-City Art Festival,[2] then in 1957, with poet Bob Alexander, they opened the Ferus Gallery on North La Cienega Boulevard.[3] The Ferus Gallery soon became a focus of avant garde art and culture in the Los Angeles area.
Despite his lack of formal artistic training, Kienholz began to employ his mechanical and carpentry skills in making collage paintings and reliefs assembled from materials salvaged from the alleys and sidewalks of the city.[4] In 1958 he sold his share of the Ferus Gallery to buy a Los Angeles house and studio and to concentrate on his art, creating free-standing, large-scale environmental tableaux. He continued to participate in activities at the Ferus Gallery, mounting a show of his first assemblage works in 1959.
In 1961, Kienholz completed his first large-scale installation, Roxy's, a room-sized environment which he showed at the Ferus Gallery in 1962. This artwork later caused a stir at the documenta 4 exhibition in 1968.
A 1966 show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) drew considerable controversy over his assemblage, Back Seat Dodge ‘38 (1964). The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors called it "revolting, pornographic and blasphemous"[2] and threatened to withhold financing for the museum unless the tableau was removed from view.[5] A compromise was reached under which the sculpture's car door would remain closed and guarded, to be opened only on the request of a museum patron who was over 18, and only if no children were present in the gallery. The uproar led to more than 200 people lining up to see the work the day the show opened. Ever since, Back Seat Dodge ’38 has drawn crowds.[5] LACMA did not formally acquire the work until 1986.[6]
In 1966, Kienholz began to spend summers in Hope, Idaho, while still maintaining studio space in Los Angeles. Also around that time, Kienholz produced a series of Concept Tableaux. which consisted of framed text descriptions of artwork that did not yet exist. He would sell these works of early Conceptual Art (though the term was not in widespread use at the time) for a modest sum, giving the buyer the right (upon payment of a larger fee) to have Kienholz actually construct the artwork.[7]
Kienholz's assemblages of found objects—the detritus of modern existence, often including figures cast from life—are at times vulgar, brutal, and gruesome, confronting the viewer with questions about human existence and the inhumanity of twentieth-century society. Regarding found materials he said, in 1977, "I really begin to understand any society by going through its junk stores and flea markets. It is a form of education and historical orientation for me. I can see the results of ideas in what is thrown away by a culture."[2]
Kienholz's work commented savagely on racism, aging, sexual stereotypes, poverty, greed, corruption, imperialism, patriotism, religion, alienation, and most of all, moral hypocrisy. Because of their satirical and antiestablishment tones, his works have often been linked to the funk art movement based in San Francisco in the 1960s.[8]
In 1981, Ed Kienholz officially declared that all his work from 1972 on should be retrospectively understood to be co-authored by, and co-signed by, his wife and collaborator, Nancy Reddin Kienholz.[6] Collectively, they are referred to as "Kienholz." Their work has been widely acclaimed, particularly in Europe.
In the early 1970s, Kienholz received a grant that permitted him to work in Berlin. His most important works during this period were based on the Volksempfängers (radio receiving apparatus from the National Socialist period in Germany). In 1973 he was guest artist of the German Academic Exchange Service in Berlin.
In 1973, Kienholz and Reddin moved from Los Angeles to Hope, Idaho and for the next twenty years they divided their time between Berlin and Idaho. In 1976 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1977 he opened "The Faith and Charity in Hope Gallery" at their Idaho studio.
Kienholz died suddeny in Idaho on June 10, 1994, from a heart attack while hiking in the mountains near their home. He was buried in a Kienholz installation: Robert Hughes wrote, "[H]is corpulent, embalmed body was wedged into the front seat of a brown 1940 Packard coupe. There was a dollar and a deck of cards in his pocket, a bottle of 1931 Chianti beside him and the ashes of his dog Smash in the back. He was set for the afterlife. To the whine of bagpipes, the Packard, steered by his widow Nancy Reddin Kienholz, rolled like a funeral barge into the big hole."[9]
Nancy Reddin Kienholz has continued to administer the joint artistic estate, organizing shows and exhibitions.[10]
Retrospectives of Kienholz's work have been infrequent, due to the difficulty and expense of assembling literally room-sized sculptures and installations from widely-dispersed collections around the world. Kienholz work has often been difficult to view, both because of its subject matter, and the logistics of displaying it. Relatively few of the major works had been on display in the US, the Kienholz's native land, though American museums have now started to feature their work more prominently, especially after a major retrospective (posthumous) exhibition in 1996 at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
The diverse and freely improvised materials and methods used in Kienholz works pose an unusual challenge to art conservators who try to preserve the artist's original intent and appearances. Treatment of Back Seat Dodge '38 for clothes moths presented an awkward situation, which was deftly addressed by the Getty Conservation Institute and the J. Paul Getty Museum in behalf of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, owner of the artwork.[11]