Page 41 - Studio International - September 1965

Edward Kienholz

execution chamber, nor a depiction of Caryl Chessman makes him an artist not only hard to adjust to, but hard
or Sacco and Vanzetti. None are there at any discursive to place. There is nothing in his work that can be seized
levels, yet he leads us to the banal, mundane or matter upon as an object, or a thing, and esthetically enjoyed
of fact entities of specific beings and events. as such-instead he projects a stream of elusive
On first sight his work seems to forego all subtlety metaphors which transform the indifferent material.
and nuance. Perhaps his operatic and theatrical manner Kienholz has said that ultimately he is trying to
-the stridency of his deployment of the absurd would express existence to ward off non-existence. He is
seem to overwhelm or drain out subtler levels of poetic consciously aware of the fragility of his being, he senses
ambiguity. The shocking and revolting image in the the void, and acts compulsively and obsessively to
interior of the Psycho Vendetta Case is a sickening ward off that ultimate moment of non-existence. But
and perhaps an obvious command on the psycho­ he subscribes to none of the religiosity that informs so
sadistic and perverted way society will kill a sexually much of California assemblage; his views are atheistic
sick individual; how the fact and means of his destruct­ and secular. There is also a strain of the anarchist in
ion reflect an even greater sickness. But in addition to Kienholz; if he senses something is taboo, he will often
the inflammatory interior there are further, more deal with it out of sheer perversity. If the subject
ambiguous-sensate touches in this piece-as well matter is not taboo. his particular way of handling
as others-for Kienholz works consistently within makes it taboo. He is an amoral moralist who rein­
precarious arrangements that maintain a peculiar carnates the sacred. In projecting himself in the role of
emotional charge which can never be mistaken for a a social and psychological moralist, he is aware that
conventional esthetic arrangement. He distends his art-or at least, sophisticated contemporary art-is not
materials for the sake of the ideas that can be evoked, supposed to deal with such issues. He will do so in
and not for their intrinsic merit as esthetic objects, and protest and defiance of any such restrictions. As a
this, perhaps, is what distinguishes him from anyone result, the best of his pieces become folklore; an
else working within assemblage. At the same time, it irrefutable truth about our society. ■

Five-Dollar Billy
Mixed media tableau
Alexander lolas Gallery, New York

115