John Chamberlain at Gagosian Gallery New York
Gagosian Gallery is presenting an important tribute to the american sculptor John Chamberlain called Masks
From the beginning of his career, Chamberlain emphasized the primary role of abstraction in his work. In 1991, he turned to a more recognizable form: the mask. Assembling intricately cut, painted metal parts, he made his first mask, A Good Head and a Half (1991), for a benefit auction for Victim Services, providing aid to victims of sexual assault.
Chamberlain continued to produce masks throughout the 1990s in his studio on Shelter Island, titling many of them with opus numbers—as in Opus 16 (1998) and Opus 90 (1998)—thus aligning their visual dynamism with the various synchronized elements of a musical composition.
Similar to the Tonk sculptures that precede them, which were made of disassembled toy trucks gathered from an abandoned Tonka Toy factory in 1981, the masks possess a vibrant, lyrical innocence, with their overlapping strips and shards of metal, as well as nails, used to evoke hair, beards, eyebrows, teeth, and crowns.
Complex relationships between color, texture, and form are found in both the masks and the wall
sculptures. Cum Two Me (1977) is a multicolored mass of curved and conjoined steel scraps,
combining raw, rusty edges with straight lines, and spray-paint drips with polished chrome.
These juxtapositions are echoed in THE MASK OF PERSISTENCE (1996), with its protruding
tongue and spirals of hair, which emerge from behind leaf-like planes of white and red.
In Rebel Ruckus (1975), the twists and folds of the metal resemble crumpled paper in hues of pink, green, yellow, and blue. With its various ridges and cast shadows, the abstract sculpture tempts a search for the contours of a face, yet remains undefinable, exemplifying the subtle anthropomorphism
of Chamberlain’s abstraction. This ambiguity can be found in the masks as well; though they are
representational in nature, they too are comprised of interconnected abstract units.
Chamberlain's profile
John Chamberlain was born in Rochester, Indiana in 1927, and died in New York in 2011.
Collections include Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Dia: Beacon, NY; Chinati
Foundation, Marfa, TX; Menil Collection, Houston; Los Angeles County Museum of Art
(LACMA); Museo Jumex, Mexico City; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museum für Moderne
Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt; Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig (mumok), Vienna; Berardo
Museum, Lisbon; and Tate, London. His first retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, New York (1971) was followed by more than one hundred solo exhibitions, including
“John Chamberlain: Sculpture, An Extended Exhibition,” Dia Art Foundation (1982–85); “John
Chamberlain: Sculpture, 1954–1985,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1986); “John
Chamberlain,” Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (1991); “John Chamberlain: Sculpture,”
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1996); “John Chamberlain: Foam sculptures (1966–79);
Photographs (1989–2004),” Chinati Foundation, Marfa (2005–06); and “John Chamberlain:
American Tableau,” Menil Collection, Houston (2009). A second retrospective at the Solomon
R. Guggenheim Museum, “Choices,” took place in 2012. Other recent exhibitions include “John
Chamberlain: It Ain't Cheap,” Dan Flavin Art Institute, Dia Art Foundation, Bridgehampton, NY
(2014); and “John Chamberlain,” Inverleith House and Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh
(2015).
Location
Gagosian Gallery New York
980 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10075
Opening reception
September 19 - October 28
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