John Chamberlain: The Foam Sculptures

by Klaus Kertess

Here is the flip side of John Chamberlain's well-known crushed car his work in foam. Just as revelatory in their formal sophistication, these works, primarily made from 1966 to 1970, with a few made in the late 1970s and early 1980s, boggle the eye with their simplicity. To make them, Chamberlain looped rope around a mass of plain or painted urethane foam and tightened it to create dynamic tensions, which resulted in seductively rounded volumes. These sculptures are essential to Chamberlain's oeuvre, and this is the first publication to address them. Its first section is based on the Marfa, Texas, Chinati Foundation exhibition of 2005-2006, with installation shots and photographs of each exhibited piece; the second section assembles a total of 85 foam sculptures, constituting an almost complete catalogue of this group and an update to Chamberlain's catalogue raisonné of 1986. Essays by Klaus Kertess, Iris Winkelmeyer and Marianne Stockebrand treat the sculptures in the larger context of Chamberlain's oeuvre and discuss the issue of conservation.

200 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2008

About the author

Klaus Kertess was an American art gallerist, art critic and curator (including of the 1995 Whitney Biennial). He grew up in Westchester County north of New York City, the second of three children. After graduating from Phillips Academy, he studied art history at Yale University and in 1966 founded the Bykert Gallery with his college roommate Jeff Byers. The gallery name was formed from a compound of both of theirs. At Bykert he showed a roster of artists which included; Brice Marden, David Novros, Barry Le Va, Alan Saret, Chuck Close, Bill Bollinger, Dorothea Rockburne, and many others.
Later as an independent curator he oversaw the 1995 edition of the Whitney Biennial. Then in 1998 he curated the exhibition DeKooning: Drawing/Seeing at the Drawing Center also in New York City.
Kertess suffered from Alzheimer's and died on October 8, 2016, after collapsing at his apartment. He was 76. He is survived by his longtime partner, the painter Billy Sullivan.