Art exhibit adds new dimension to postmodernism
By Daily Bruin Staff
July 7, 1996 9:00 p.m.
Sunday, July 7, 1996
Kienholz’s work mocks consumerism by employing its productsBy
Carrie Rosten
Summer Bruin Contributor
It’s worth while schlepping through traffic on the 10 and
shelling out a few bucks to see "Kienholz: A Retrospective" at The
Museum of Contemporary Art downtown.
The exhibition showcases the artist’s prolific career, including
his 20-year collaboration with his wife, Nancy Reddin Kienholz.
For the first time ever, the public can see more than 100 of his
works, a confrontational array of 3-D assemblages and plywood
collages that emotionally, intellectually and even physically
engage the viewer while simultaneously challenging traditional
social institutions and norms.
The show, which opened June 30 and runs through Nov. 3, is not
only a scintillating feast for the eyes, ears and minds but also a
deserving tribute to the late great artist’s 40-year career.
His controversial works reflect a post-World War II mentality,
depicting a postmodern wasteland of social decay infested with
violence, apathy and consumer culture.
"John Doe" and "Jane Doe" utilize bloody dolls’ heads to paint a
disturbing portrait of the archetypical American male and female.
These early freestanding assemblages introduce Kienholz’s
experimental technique of "assembling" everyday objects to
reconstruct conventionally harmless and quintessentially "American"
items, such as dolls or bicycles, into nightmarish visions of
brutality and hypocrisy.
What makes Kienholz so accessible and intriguing is his
sometimes playful, occasionally didactic and frequently
heart-breaking compilation and reinterpretation of American
products.
In the life-sized "Roxys," he effectively recreates a 1940s
brothel  down to the actual stench of cigarette butts reeking
throughout the room. Upon entering the space, we immediately see
our own reflections in a large mirror across the room, forcing us
to look at ourselves as we view the work.
Taking five showroom mannequins, Kienholz strips them of their
glossy dressings and instead decapitates, amputates and mutilates
them, suggesting an equally sadistic and brutal reality of
socio-sexual exploitation and "commodification" of the female body.
The strangeness and sadness of the piece is experiential,
uncomfortably palpable.
Upon exiting the room, the viewer is a bit queasy, for the
artist has succeeded in making art feel all too real.
Throughout the course of the exhibit, Kienholz’s work continues
to blur traditional binary oppositions.
Dichotomies such as image/reality and high art/mass culture are
dissolved. Aggressively visceral pieces like "Roxys" perhaps
suggest that no such distinctions actually exist.
Can the artistic image exist apart from the "real," or does it
perhaps constitute and even supersede the "real"?
And is the modern elitist conception of "art" applicable or
relevant to a postmodern audience entranced in global
consumerism?
Kienholz’s work doesn’t answer these questions but rather
uniquely reassembles the wreckage of our modern past to convey
postmodern and contemporary life.
His visual metaphors are striking, and his technique is wholly
unique. Consequently, the viewer is often provoked  even
mocked, but always somehow moved.
The sadness of death’s inevitability in "Barney’s Beanery" or
the carnival-like madness of politics in "Oxymandias Parade"
confront our own mortality and complacency.
"Kienholz: A Retrospective" doesn’t attempt to cash in on antics
or shock-value. The power of the show lies in the distinctive
visual mediums through which his social messages are directly
sent.
Although viewers may not enter the exhibit with any
preconceptions of what they are about to see, Edward Kienholz’s
brazen images nonetheless disturb us and force us to either create,
alter or reaffirm our opinions.
Kienholz’s life-sized artwork powerfully affects the viewer’s
sense of reality.
In the life-sized "Roxys," he effectively recreates a 1940s
brothel  down to the actual stench of cigarette butts reeking
throughout the room.
"John Doe" offers a startling image of the American male.
Kienholz’s work … rather uniquely reassembles the wreckage of
our modern past to convey postmodern and contemporary life.
