Waddington Custot is pleased to present an exhibition of work from three major American sculptors: John Chamberlain (1927–2011), Dan Flavin (1933–96) and Robert Indiana (b.1928). Individually, they have each made a notable contribution to the development of sculpture in the twentieth century. Their parallels lie in the conscious use of found objects from an industrialised America, reflecting economics, consumerism and mechanisation. The three sculptors embraced these aspects of American society and revolutionised the concept of sculpture and sculpture-making. John Chamberlain began to construct sculpture from scrap car parts in the early 1950s. He referred to these inexpensive and readily available materials as ‘chosen’ rather than ‘found’, selected for their particular look or fit as though the material in itself dictated the final form. Familiar with the assemblage sculpture of David Smith, Chamberlain would press and twist metal into shapes that would interlock and fit together with limited welding. He also appropriated the acidic, artificial colours of automobile paint, pioneering a change in the use of colour in sculpture. Chamberlain’s early use of car parts was ground-breaking in its use of urban, commercial materials, which would subsequently be exploited more explicitly by Pop and Minimalist artists. This exhibition includes an early example of this type of sculpture. Waller, from 1959, shows the assemblage quality of Chamberlain’s early work, sculptural elements used in their found state, with component car parts still definable. His work encapsulated the qualities of spontaneity, destruction and chance attributed to the Abstract Expressionists but articulated, for the first time, in sculpture. Waller will be shown alongside the later work Avery Fair, 1992, which displays the resolution of his mastery of sculptural volume, the manipulation of components to create a sculpture which appears to be made of one piece of metal. Dan Flavin similarly incorporated industrial colours and materials in his work through the use of standardised fluorescent light bulbs. His light sculptures were prescribed by manufactured bulb colour and length, which allowed for a non-hierarchical arrangement of parts. As well as the democratisation of sculptural material, he was interested
in how light could be used to shape and define space. He investigated the qualities of colour and light and its reach beyond the physical limits of sculptural components. This is clearly articulated in Flavin’s corner pieces, such as Untitled, 1969, which utilise an often neglected area of gallery space, mixing colours and reflecting artificial light to a limitless extent. The architecture of the space is integral to the work; in this sense the sculpture is site-specific in any environment in which it is hung. In the late 1950s, Robert Indiana began making sculpture from discarded wooden beams salvaged from buildings being demolished around his New York studio at the Coenties Slip. He modified these works in the following years, attaching discarded wheels and integrating text and numbers using found stencils for commercial packing, influenced by advertising and typography of new American consumerism. His lexicon of words and symbols is derived from many sources such as the signs of roadside diners, road signs designating route numbers, company signs and billboards, which had been a ubiquitous part of the Depression-era, Midwestern landscape of Indiana’s childhood and, for him, closely connected to personal memories. Numbers have been seen in his work since the 1960s, in word and in Arabic numeral form, both singly and in groups. Thematically, numbers were central to Indiana’s art as words. The ten number sculpture ONE through ZERO (Cor-ten steel), 2003, utilises the formal aspects of numbers as individual sculptural objects. The simple, clear, universally understood nature of these symbols provided a base from which Indiana could explore formal possibilities as well as the significance, and narrative, numbers could be imbued with, both on a personal and public level. The exhibition will be a unique look at key works from these artists’ careers and how they revolutionised American sculpture in a way in which contemporary visual art is still very much indebted.
JOHN CHAMBERLAIN
1 Waller 1959
2 Avery Fair 1992
3 Abby Cassidy 2006
DAN FLAVIN
4 “monument” for V. Tatlin 1968
5 (previous) Untitled 1969 6 Untitled (to VĂŠronique) 1987
ROBERT INDIANA
7 Two 1960–62
8 Four 1962
9 ONE through ZERO (Cor-ten steel) 1978–2003
10 Apogee 1970
LIST OF WORKS
1 John Chamberlain Waller 1959 painted steel 29 × 49 × 23 in / 73.5 × 124.5 × 58.5 cm Provenance Mr and Mrs Ronald K. Greenberg, St. Louis, Missouri (acquired directly from the artist) Private Collection, Seattle Exhibited ‘John Chamberlain: Sculpture’, Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, 22 November –17 December 1960 ‘Faculty Artists at UNM 1960–70’, The University Art Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 7 December 1970–3 January 1971 (repro.) ‘American Masters of the Sixties and Seventies’, Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee, 9– 28 December 1978, catalogue no.8 (repro.) ‘Found in America: Chamberlain, Flavin, Indiana’, Waddington Custot, London, 5 May–1 July 2017 Literature John Chamberlain: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Sculpture, 1954–1985, Julie Sylvester, Hudson Hills Press, New York, in association with The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1986, no.34, p.50 (repro. in colour p.51) Mr and Mrs Ronald K. Greenberg were under the impression that his work was ‘Swannanoa’, a similar work of the same year (see Sylvester, ibid., no.33) 2 John Chamberlain Avery Fair 1992 painted steel 55 ½ × 65 × 64 ⅝ in / 141 × 165.1 × 164.1 cm
Provenance PaceWildenstein, New York (acquired directly from the artist) Exhibited ‘John Chamberlain: Neue Skulpturen’, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, 14 November 1992–27 February 1993 ‘John Chamberlain: recent sculpture’, The Pace Gallery, New York, 17 September –15 October 1994, catalogue p.19 (repro. in colour) ‘John Chamberlain: Current Work and Fond Memories, Sculptures and Photographs 1967–1995’, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 11 May–30 June 1996; touring to Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 7 September–17 November 1996 (not repro. in catalogue; incorrect caption p.103) ‘John Chamberlain: Without Fear’, Waddington Galleries, London, 20 April –21 May 2005, catalogue no.7 (repro. in colour, two views) ‘Found in America: Chamberlain, Flavin, Indiana’, Waddington Custot, London, 5 May–1 July 2017 Literature Sculpture, Waddington Galleries, London, 2007, no.16 (repro. in colour p.[33]) 3 John Chamberlain Abby Cassidy 2006 painted and chromed steel 17⅝ × 19⅜ × 16 in / 44.7 × 49.2 × 40.6 cm Provenance Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, St. Louis, Missouri (acquired directly from the artist) Waddington Galleries, London Private Collection, London Exhibited ‘John Chamberlain: New Sculptures’, Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, St. Louis, Missouri, 26 April–31 May 2007
‘Found in America: Chamberlain, Flavin, Indiana’, Waddington Custot, London, 5 May–1 July 2017 This work is accompanied by a Deed of Conveyance, issued and signed by the artist and stamped with the artist’s seal 4 Dan Flavin “monument” for V. Tatlin 1968 cool white fluorescent light 96 × 24 × 4 ¼ in / 243.8 × 61 × 10.8 cm copy number 1 from an edition of 5; only three from the edition of five have been fabricated Provenance Leo Castelli Gallery, New York Chase Manhattan Bank, New York Private Collection, Texas Paula Cooper Gallery, New York Exhibited ‘fluorescent light, etc. from Dan Flavin’, The National Gallery of Canada, Ottowa, 13 September–19 October 1969; touring to Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, 12 November–7 December 1969, catalogue fig.15, p.245 (sketch repro.) “monuments’ for V. Tatlin from Dan Flavin, 1964–1982’, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in collaboration with Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, 21 April– 17 June 1984; touring to Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 29 September –25 November 1984; CAPC, Musée d’art contemporain, Bordeaux, France, 1 March–28 April 1985; Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, The Netherlands, 23 November 1985–12 January 1986 (another copy exhibited), catalogue no.52 (repro. in b&w); no.49 (sketch repro.) ‘Art at Work: Forty Years of the Chase Manhattan Collection’, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 3 March–2 May 1999;
touring to Queens Museum, Flushing, New York, 21 May–15 September 2000 (another copy exhibited) ‘Dan Flavin: A Retrospective’, curated by Michael Govan and Tiffany Bell, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 3 October 2004–9 January 2005; touring to Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas, 25 February–5 June 2005; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 1 July–30 October 2005 ‘Carte Blanche: Paula Cooper Gallery at Galerie Patrick Seguin’, Galerie Patrick Seguin, Paris, 19 October–24 November 2012 ‘Répétition: 1960–1975’, Paula Cooper Gallery, 521 W 21st Street, New York, 19 January–9 February 2013 ‘A Machinery for Living’, Petzel Gallery, 456 W 18th Street, New York, 2 July –8 August 2014 ‘What’s New is New Again: Dan Flavin, Louise Lawler and Sherrie Levine’, Marc Jancou Contemporary, New York, 9 April–11 July 2015 ‘Found in America: Chamberlain, Flavin, Indiana’, Waddington Custot, London, 5 May–1 July 2017 Literature Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch: Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, Museum Folkwang, Essen, 1988, no.59, p.327 (repro. in b&w) “monuments” for V. Tatlin from Dan Flavin, 1964–1982, Donald Young Gallery, Chicago, for The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in collaboration with Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, 1989, no.52 (repro. in b&w) & no.49 (sketch repro.) Cinquante espéce d’espaces: oeuvres du Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Direction des Musées de Marseille, Marseilles, 1998, p.74 (repro. in b&w) Dan Flavin: The Complete Lights 1961–1996, Michael Govan and Tiffany Bell, Dia Art Foundation, Washington, D.C., in association with Yale University Press, New York, 2004, no.163, p.267 (diagram repro.) & fig.31, p.46 (sketch repro.)
This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist ‘The certificates date this work to 1967, but the 1989 MoCA catalogue dates it to 1968 and reproduces a drawing from January 31, 1968, showing the configuration. Although the work was reproduced horizontally (8-foot [244cm] fixtures along the floor) in the MoCA catalogue, all of the certificates represent the work in a vertical position (8-foot fixtures on the left). The number 43 is sometimes added to the title of this “monument”.’ (see Govan and Bell, ibid.) 5 Dan Flavin Untitled 1969 two 48-inch blue, two 24-inch pink, one 24-inch yellow lights and fixtures 96 in / 243.8 cm wide across the corner copy number 1 from an edition of 5; only two from the edition of five have been fabricated Provenance Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich (acquired directly from the artist in 1969) Collection Emanuel Hoffman-Stiftung, Basel Heiner Friedrich Gallery, Cologne Sotheby’s, New York: 15 May 2007 (lot no.62) Paula Cooper Gallery, New York Exhibited ‘Dan Flavin: fluorescent light’, Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich, 19 May–4 June 1969 ‘Dan Flavin’, Gagosian Gallery, London, 9 February–18 March 2006 ‘Dan Flavin’, Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, 15 September–27 October 2007 ‘Répétition II’, Paula Cooper Gallery, 534 W 21st Street, New York, 23 February– 23 March 2013 ‘Found in America: Chamberlain, Flavin, Indiana’, Waddington Custot, London, 5 May–1 July 2017
Literature Dan Flavin: The Complete Lights 1961–1996, Michael Govan and Tiffany Bell, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2004, no.214, p.283 (colour diagram repro.) This work is accompanied by a coloured certificate of authenticity signed by the artist 6 Dan Flavin Untitled (to Véronique) 1987 red, yellow, blue and green fluorescent light 96 in / 243.8 cm (height) number 3 from an edition of 5; only four from the edition of five have been fabricated Provenance Leo Castelli Gallery, New York Galerie Nikki Diana Marquardt, Paris Pierre Huber Gallery, Geneva Private Collection, Switzerland Christie’s, New York: 14 May 2008 (lot no.383) Private Collection, New York Exhibited ‘Dan Flavin: Hommage à Leo Castelli 1957–1987’, Galerie Nikki Diana Marquardt, Paris, 21 May–27 June 1987 (another copy exhibited) ‘Minimalismos, un signo de los tiempos’, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 11 July–8 October 2001 (repro. in colour p.42) (another copy exhibited) ‘With You I Want To Live: the Gordon Locksley and Dr George T. Shea Collection’, Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 18 April 2009–22 March 2010 (extended to September 2010) (repro. in catalogue) ‘Found in America: Chamberlain, Flavin, Indiana’, Waddington Custot, London, 5 May–1 July 2017
Literature Dan Flavin: The Complete Lights 1961–1996, Michael Govan and Tiffany Bell, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2004, no.497, p.365 (colour diagram repro.) This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist This work is dedicated to a gallery assistant who worked at the Galerie Nikki Diana Marquardt. Another copy of this sculpture was previously in the collection of Donald Judd 7 Robert Indiana Two 1960–62 oil on wood and iron wheels 62 ½ × 19 × 20 in / 158.8 × 48.3 × 50.8 cm stencilled on reverse ‘NEW YORK / 1960–1962’ Provenance Morgan Art Foundation (acquired directly from the artist) Exhibited ‘Indiana’s Indianas: A 20-Year Retrospective of Paintings and Sculpture From the Collection of Robert Indiana’, The William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, Rockland, Maine, 16 July–26 September 1982; touring to The Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, 17 October–12 December 1982, catalogue p.16 (repro. in b&w) ‘Robert Indiana: Early Sculpture 1960– 1962’, Salama-Caro Gallery, London, 12 September–9 November 1991, catalogue no.10 (repro. in colour) ‘Robert Indiana: Rétrospective 1958–1998’, Musée d’art moderne et d’art contemporain, Nice, 26 June–22 November 1998, catalogue pp.57 & 95 (repro. in b&w), 141 & [144] (repro. in colour)
‘Robert Indiana’, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, 5 July–8 August 2002, catalogue p.74 (repro. in colour p.75) ‘Robert Indiana: A Living Legend’, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, 11 March–30 April 2006, catalogue no.3, pp.19 & 27 (repro. in b&w); pp.[30] & 35 (repro. in colour) ‘Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE’, curated by Barbara Haskell, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 26 September 2013–5 January 2014; touring to McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, 5 February– 25 May 2014, catalogue p.80 (repro. in colour fig.72 & p.87) ‘Found in America: Chamberlain, Flavin, Indiana’, Waddington Custot, London, 5 May–1 July 2017 Literature Wood Works: Constructions by Robert Indiana, Virginia M. Mecklenburg, published for the National Museum of American Art by Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 1984, no.29, p.34 (repro. in colour) (not exhibited) Robert Indiana, Carl J. Weinhardt, Harry N. Abrams Inc. Publishers, New York, 1999, p.[62] (repro. in colour); pp.176 & 75 (repro. in b&w p.74) Robert Indiana: Figures of Speech, Susan Elizabeth Ryan, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2000, fig.2.42, p.69 (repro. in colour) Robert Indiana, Nathan Kernan, Assouline, New York, 2003, p.[36] (repro. in colour) & p.[43] (repro. in b&w) Robert Indiana, Joachim Pissarro, John Wilderming and Robert Pincus-Witten, Rizzoli International Publications Inc., New York, 2006, p.[35] (repro. in colour) & p.[49] (repro. in b&w) Robert Indiana: The American Painter of Signs, Museum Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden, Germany, 2008, p.85 (repro. in colour) (not exhibited) Robert Indiana: A Milan, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Silvana Editoriale, 2008, p.16 (repro. in colour) (not exhibited)
Robert Indiana: New Perspectives, Allison Unruh (ed.), Robert Storr et. al., Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, 2012 (repro. in colour p.[257], fig.155 & p.[174], fig.103); p.156, fig.90 (repro in b&w) 8 Robert Indiana Four 1962 oil and gesso on wood, wire and iron wheels 77 ½ × 24 × 12 in / 196.9 × 61 × 30.5 cm stencilled on reverse ‘NEW YORK’ Provenance Morgan Art Foundation (acquired directly from the artist) Exhibited ‘Wood Works: Constructions by Robert Indiana’, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1 May–3 September 1984, catalogue no.8, p.52 (repro. in b&w p.53) ‘Robert Indiana: Rétrospective 1958–1998’, Musée d’art moderne et d’art contemporain, Nice, 26 June–22 November 1998, catalogue pp.[144] & 163 (repro. in colour) ‘Robert Indiana: A Living Legend’, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, 11 March–30 April 2006, catalogue p.[30] (repro. in colour) ‘Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE’, curated by Barbara Haskell, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 26 September 2013–5 January 2014; touring to McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, 5 February– 25 May 2014, catalogue fig.74, p.80 (repro. in colour p.[81]); p.87 (repro. in colour); p.246 (repro. in b&w) ‘Found in America: Chamberlain, Flavin, Indiana’, Waddington Custot, London, 5 May–1 July 2017 Literature Robert Indiana, Carl J. Weinhardt, Harry N. Abrams Inc. Publishers, New York, 1999, p.[62] (repro. in colour) & p.69 (repro. in b&w)
Robert Indiana, Nathan Kernan, Assouline, New York, 2003, p.[36] (repro. in colour) Robert Indiana, Joachim Pissarro, John Wilderming and Robert Pincus-Witten, Rizzoli International Publications Inc., New York, 2006, p.15 (repro. in colour) Robert Indiana: New Perspectives, Allison Unruh (ed.), Robert Storr et. al., Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, 2012, fig.36, p.[61] (repro. in colour) & fig.109, p.[184] (repro in colour) 9 Robert Indiana ONE through ZERO (Cor-ten steel) 1978–2003 cor-ten steel on painted aluminium base 33 ¾ × 33 × 17 in / 85.7 × 83.8 × 43.2 cm (each, including base) copy number 2 from an edition of 3 plus 2 APs; each incised with date, artist’s name, copy number and fabricator ‘©1978–2003 R INDIANA 2/3 MILGO BROOKLYN NY’; conceived in 1978 and executed in 2003 in an edition of 3 plus 2 artist’s proofs Provenance Morgan Art Foundation (acquired directly from the artist) Exhibited ‘Found in America: Chamberlain, Flavin, Indiana’, Waddington Custot, London, 5 May–1 July 2017 Indiana has used numbers in his work since the 1960s, in word and in Arabic numeral form, both singly and in groups. Thematically, numbers are as central to Indiana’s art as words. The simple, clear, universally understood nature of these symbols provided a base from which Indiana could explore formal possibilities – from the stencilled numbers, painted on his early found-object sculptures, to the typography of the number sculptures, originating from an old calendar – as well
as the significance, and narrative, numbers could be imbued with, both on a personal and public level. This is the cor-ten steel 30-inch version of ‘ONE through ZERO’, a grouping of ten number sculptures which was first realised, on a monumental scale, in the early 1980s, as part of a commission from Melvin Simon & Associates, to be gifted to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The large-scale sculpture was Indiana’s first translation of numbers into sculptural form, devised from the wide, curving, looped numerals of his ten-panel paintings (1 to 0) which comprised ‘Numbers’, 1965, as well as ‘The Cardinal Numbers’ of 1966. The three-dimensional, eight foot high numbers were, with the exception of the grey zero, painted in bright, contrasting two-colour schemes. Indiana was inspired, in his concept for these number sculptures, by the popular, mid-19 th Century, American tradition of narrative imagery which depicted in one form, or another, the cycle of life, from birth to death through childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. In particular, whilst Artist-in- Residence at Dartmouth College in 1970, Indiana was given a copy of a 19 th Century lithograph by Nathaniel Currier, ‘The Life and Age of Man: Stages of Man’s Life, from the Cradle to the Grave’, c.1850. The narrative thread of the ‘ages of man’ is represented by specific numerals: 1. birth, 2. infancy, 3. youth, 4. adolescence, 5. pre-prime of life, 6. prime of life, 7. early autumn, 8. autumn, 9. warning, 0. death 10 Robert Indiana Apogee 1970 oil on canvas 60 × 50 in / 152.4 × 127 cm
stencilled on reverse ‘ROBERT INDIANA 2 SPRING 1970 NEW YORK’ Provenance Mayfair Gallery, London Collection Peter C.A. Holm (acquired from the above) Christie’s, London: 22 June 2006 (lot no.55) Private Collection (acquired from the above sale) Exhibited ‘Amerikansk kunst, 1950–70’, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark, 11 September–24 October 1971 Gallery Birger Arnesen, Copenhagen, 1982 ‘Amerikansk kunst efter 1960: et udsnit af tre private samlinger’, GL Holtegaard, Holte, Denmark, 1991 ‘EuroPop: A dialogue with the US’, Arken Museum for Moderne Kunst, Ishøj, Denmark, 30 January–2 May 1999 (repro. in colour in catalogue) ‘Robert Indiana: Letters, Words and Numbers’, C&M Arts, New York, 13 February–22 March 2003, catalogue no.14 (repro. in colour) ‘Found in America: Chamberlain, Flavin, Indiana’, Waddington Custot, London, 5 May–1 July 2017 Literature Robert Indiana: New Perspectives, Allison Unruh (ed.), Robert Storr et. al., Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, 2012 (‘Apogee’ shown hanging in the artist’s studio in b&w photograph of Indiana taken by photographer Hans Namuth, c.1970s, p.[15])
Found in America Chamberlain, Flavin, Indiana 5 May–1 July 2017 Waddington Custot 11 Cork Street London W1S 3LT T. +44 20 7851 2200 waddingtoncustot.com Monday to Friday 10am–6pm Saturday 10am–4pm Designed by A Practice for Everyday Life © Waddington Custot, London, 2017 Published by Waddington Custot Co-ordinated by Jessica Ramsay