Page 40 - Studio International - September 1965

a human being or combine them with machinery. For art. He will sometimes get beyond the allegorical
example. Five-Dollar Billy, one of the whores from the stereotype and. despite his usage of the mass-produced
'Roxy· tableau. is mounted across the top surface of a mannequin. he will so transform it that it induces the
treadle sewing machine which can be manually feeling of a specific person. without its being-at least
activated to drive the paraplegic limbs. The result is in a conventional sense-a portrait. Artist after artist
not only a pun on mechanical sex. but a commentary might raise the issue of women, but in this respect
on the degrading results to both client and girl. Kienholz stands alone. Were she to come to life and
Of the class of assemblage that has been created were we to meet, for example. the little lady of The
within California. some of it-but not all of it-reveals Birthday, we would recognise her at once. If we
the qualities of the milieu out of which it came. Unless its believe in a visual narrative and dramatic art, and
materials are either of an impersonal or industrial Kienholz helps in a new way to substantiate the
nature or imported. any kind of assemblage is far more validity of such an art, then it can become richer and
subject to this kind of 'local colour' than is abstract more complex even within a general situation if
art. But, since Kienholz is the artist in assemblage who certain parts are either peculiar or unique. This sense of
most overtly deals with social issues. his art reflects both the specific would seem. at times. to allow for greater
the eccentricity of the materials particular to the unknowns, complexities and dimensions. His subject
environment and. even more so. some of the brutality, matter appears always to derive from some specific
absurdity and eccentricity of the environment. His event-the exact nature of it may be gleaned through
sensibility is fed by a compulsively puritanical fury the title or the homogenised iconographical wholeness
which impels him to action. The world. its absurdity or through a peculiar build-up of iconographic
and injustice make him feel a certain way-he shouts references within and without a piece. In any event, the
back in anger. When he views with alarm something of end piece often stands at a strange remove from the
what men do to women. he does not imply the girlie concrete event of its origins. The Psycho Vendetta Case,
of the mass media as. for example. in Roy Lichtenstein's for example, is not a concrete depiction of a gas or

The Binhday 1964
Mixed media tableau
7 ft. high x 10 ft. wide x 5 ft. deep
Dwan Gallery, Los Angeles

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