Tag Archives: john chamberlain

Arts and Culture

Tangled Up In Blue By Kathleen Bennett Bastis

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Tangled Up In Blue
Photo By Gail

We walked into an exhibit by Kathleen Bennett Bastis in the middle of last week’s art crawl, and what stood out for me most was this piece, Tangled Up In Blue which instantly reminded me of the work of John Chamberlain, although on a much smaller scale.

The sculpture, made of found and repurposed metal, plastic and paper is part of Tossed and Found, Bastis’ second solo at Chelsea’s First Street Gallery, in which she continues to explore and celebrate the inherent beauty of found objects that are cast off, washed up, worn out and walked over.

The artist explains: “I curate the streets, riverbanks and scrapyards collecting detached bits and fragments; allowing them to start the conversation that guides the direction of a piece. I try to forge a relationship between these elements’ unique visual ‘dialects’ and construct a common language by translating their past narrative into present tense.”

You can see the rest of Tossed and Found on Exhibit Through May 20th, 2017 at First Street Gallery, Located at 526 West 26th Street, Suite 209, in the Chelsea Gallery District.

Arts and Culture

Rejected Skin By William Tarr

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Rejected Skin
All Photos By Gail

For years I’ve walked by this sculpture installation at the corner of Water Street and Old Slip, and assumed it was one of John Chamberlain’s crushed car works. But recently I was compelled to snap a few photographs and do a bit of Googling. What I found out is that back in 1970, artist William Tarr made this sculpture from aluminum panels meant for the facade of 77 Water Street (the building on whose plaza it sits) that were rejected due to their imperfections. Thus, the sculpture’s name, Rejected Skin.

Rejected Skin

Rejected Skin 2

Rejected Skin

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: John Chamberlain, Dorkdorf

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John Chamberlain Dorkdorf
All Photos By Gail

I didn’t get turned on to the unique sculptural style of John Chamberlain until his Spring 2012 Retrospective at The Guggenheim, at which point Chamberlain had only recently passed away. Chamberlain was best known for his dynamic sculptures created with scrap metal from salvaged cars, which are held in many public collections.

John Chamberlain Dorkdorf 2

This piece, Dorkdorf (1988) is made from painted and chrome-plated steel and is very representative of his style. At this time this photo was taken (July, 2014) it was on exhibit in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, though the piece is privately owned, so there is no telling how long it will remain on public view.

John Chamberlain was considered to be a master of creative re-use and he continues to inspire many artists to use found metal in their art. He died at his home in Manhattan on December 20th, 2011 at the age of 84.

Arts and Culture

New Ceramic Works by Lynda Benglis at Cheim & Read

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Lynda Benglis Row of Red and Yellow Sculptures
All Photos By Gail

Ground breaking sculptor/artist Lynda Benglis is always doing something interesting. Her newest work is an engaging series of abstract ceramics made in New Mexico, where she lives part time. In this exhibit at Cheim and Read, Benglis’s seemingly random shaped, clay-based sculptures retain the earthy, elemental, primal nature of clay, and highlight the material’s unique susceptibility to the artist’s touch. The variety of bold textures on each sculpture is extremely visually pleasing, and each one is unique and different. Continue reading New Ceramic Works by Lynda Benglis at Cheim & Read →

Arts and Culture

John Chamberlain: Choices at The Guggenheim Museum

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John Chamberlain Multi Colored Sculpture

After an incredibly disappointing trip to The Whitney to see this year’s Biennial (More like Bi-YAWN-nial), Geoffrey and I took advantage of already being uptown and walked three quarters of a mile along Fifth Avenue (such a gorgeous day it was) to The Guggenheim, where sculptor John Chamberlain — who  just died in late December — has a fantastic career retrospective that made my heart go pitter-pat.

John Chamberlain White Sculpture

Background on Chamberlain from The Guggenheim’s always informative website tells us that the Artist moved from Chicago to New York in 1956 and shortly thereafter got the idea to utilize car metal as his medium. Unfortunately, a lot of people misinterpreted his creative re-use of a ubiquitous material in his sculptures as being a reference to the tangled mess of a car crash. Chamberlain “spent the rest of his life outrunning that association. His primary concern was and continued to be three-dimensional abstraction. More sensitive observers noted a kinship between his works and the dramatic modeling of Baroque art and sculptural drapery studies.”

John Chamberlain Blue Sculpture

Geoffrey took a few minutes to warm up to Chamberlain’s bold, colorful and flowy sculptures, but I loved them instantly. Considering that most of these works are made from car parts, it’s really astounding how each one is so different and has its own personality, even. If I lived on a huge estate with a ton of land it would be so cool to have one of these in the front yard, I think, or around back by the pool. The sculptures are organized chronologically from the earliest pieces at the bottom of the ramp to newer sculptures — some that Chamberlain completed shortly before his death — placed further up at the top of the rotunda. The shape of the museum really provides an ideal venue to show off these works, as many of them are very large and you can literally walk all the way around them and examine the work from all angles. Each one has its own story to tell.

John Chamberlain Choices Red Sculpture

Choices By John Chamberlain Runs Through May 13, 2012 at The Guggenheim Museum, Located at 5th Avenue and 89th Street in New York City.

John Chamberlain Drum