JOHN CHAMBERLAIN AT THE GUGGENHEIM

There is something slightly unsettling about seeing Chamberlaine's works. Almost like seeing a dead body wash ashore.  Or picking through a trash bin and finding a lost child. Seeing something in his sculptures that once belonged to something else, soemthing that once was- crying out to be released from the crumpled confines of it's new predicament. An object that once had pride in itself, a purpose, and a maker, now bent over in imprisonment, subjugated to gawkers. To say "Release me from man." 



I feel Chamberlain is the mortal enemy of Josef Hoffmann, who proclaims the unity between designer, craftsman, and consumer. The joy of the object is in the thought process, the care of the craft, and the enjoyment of the user. Chamberlain seems to dismiss completely this love, murdering objects for his own usage instead. 


I find his artwork forceful and egotistically macho. As if he chooses his medium based on his physical strength. Rawness, steel, strength, americana, young men, muscle cars - all of these things bound together, mashed, manipulated, squeezed, forced, bent - all to show his strength over these objects. 

And the paint that tops each of these beings are like that last proclamation of "You are mine! Here, I have marked you as mine." That last shiver, that last shout of exultation. 
Or like a slasher's blood on its victims. Slain across each breast as a final marking, a final humiliation for one, and a prideful signature of the other. Congealing in drips, running and pooling in sweet rust and iron. 

 

 "Kiss #12" 1979 

Painted Steel

An oilcan laying on the floor beaten and defeated. Painted and made up in brightly feminine colors like a done up housewife in lipstick, apron, and pearls. Now laying crumpled and defeated, twisted and broken. Why? She seems to ask. What have I done wrong?