I went to the Art Show. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The single work occupied the whole of an exhibition room. Among other things it shows how media and technology are literally ‘in your face’.
The Art Show is a very large installation. It was developed between the years 1963 until 1977. Situated within the Berlinische Galerie in Berlin, the curators provide notes which describe this extraordinary work as follows:
‘It is one of the major works by Edward Kienholz and Nancy Reddin Kienholz. Its theme is the opening of an art exhibition in a gallery and it entered the collection of the Berlinische Galerie in 1996. The first ideas for this walk-in scene with ironic qualities were worked out by Edward Kienholz in the United States as early as 1963 and 1967. The realisation of the work is, however, closely connected to Berlin. With a grant from the DAAD (The German Academic Exchange Service) – the husband-and-wife artists spent several months in Berlin from 1973 onward. In 1974 they decided to spend part of each year in Berlin to realise the Art show.
The tableau (in the show) consists of nineteen figures, fourteen collage-like works of art on the theme of casting the bodies for sculptures, furnishing and installing the gallery space – and, installing electrical wiring.
For the figures, the couple molded friends and personalities from the art scene of the 1970s, including their three children. All of the figures wear the clothing of the people modelled. By contrast, their faces are distorted with air conditioning vents and fans from junked cars. They radiate warm air. (!) When visitor press the buttons on the figures, a comment on art by the person depicted is heard with background noise from an art exhibition opening.’
One of the reasons that I like going to contemporary art exhibitions is that, for me, they are often full of surprises. I find myself enjoying the sense of being ‘woken up’ and they demand that I ask the question: What is this about?’ Even if I do try to answer that question I often do not find anything like the answer which the artist intended. However, I rather liked listening to the assertions made by the people depicted in The Art Show. In fact, some of the comments made by these ‘personalities’ were very demanding. One, for example, contrasted ways of thinking in science and philosophy with those of conceptual artists. The former distinguish between theory and practice: theory concerns itself with understanding whilst practice concerns itself with altering or bringing about change in the empirical world. Quite what the latter (the conceptual artists) do is not always clear!
The photographs show some of the figures in the Kienholz’s work that is exhibited in the Berlinsche Galerie. But I have also included a photograph of another work of art on show in plein air (for all to see) near the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin. The plein air figure is deliberately provocative and amusing. He makes people smile. The performance artist also speaks to whomsoever may wish to listen. His assertions were often gnostic and other-worldly.
Go Ask Alice 