John Chamberlain
urethane foam, cloth and wood
1966
A collection of foam sculptures created between 1966-1970 using urethane foam, cloth, and wood, representing Chamberlain's groundbreaking exploration of soft, malleable materials. These works mark his deliberate departure from his famous automobile-part sculptures toward more experimental, transformative artistic practices rooted in everyday gesture and action.
- Medium
- Executed in 1966-1970 at the beginning of the pioneering sculptor’s career, this selection of three superb foam sculptures by John Chamberlain showcases his unique exploration of form and materiality. Having begun working with discarded automobile parts, the artist’s signature and wildly unorthodox choice of medium, in 1957, Chamberlain was keen to overcome his reputation as a fender bender by the late 1960s and experimented with other unconventional yet significantly more malleable materials such as urethane foam, synthetic polymers, and aluminum foil. Fascinated by the active transformation of everyday materials, Chamberlain recalled watching someone squeeze a sponge while washing dishes and observing one end of the sponge popping out of one side of their fist, suddenly resembling a sculpture to the artist: “It’s daily life,” he explained, “That’s where I get the idea that everybody makes sculpture every day, whether in the way they throw the towel over the rack or the way they wad up the toilet paper. That’s all very personal and very exact, and in some sense very skillful on their part…those little things, like blowing up a paper bag and hitting it so it pops --- take it one little step further and do it in slow motion and explore what the resistance of the air in the bag is, and you make something. To me that is very interesting, if there is a body of work demonstrating all these things that come together, that’s useful in art history, as a record of accumulation and development of knowledge in this occupation” (John Chamberlain quoted in Julie Sylvester,
- Spotted At
- Auction House · Phillips
🔨 Auction Lot
20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session
November 14, 2018
Estimate: $12,000 – $18,000
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