John Chamberlain at Paula Cooper

Like many folks, I’ve enjoyed John Chamberlain’s artworks of crushed, bent and twisted steel – usually made of car parts. Admittedly my enjoyment is purely from looking at the physical embodiment of some Dionysisian example of this work. Thats not as shallow as it may sound because, yes, I do understand that his work – built with a spontaneous “fit” versus a traditional planned approach is the core of the work. In a way if you were to compare his work to one of his contemporaries such as Mark di Suvero you could make the case that Chamberlain is Dionysian to di Suvero’s Apollonian. And that’s not a bad thing – far from it. In pop music you could call Iggy Pop Dionysian and David Bowie Apollonian. To get back to the point Chamberlains physicality and his control or at the least, his relationship to control is almost always interesting.

However today while I was at Paula Cooper I had the realization that Chamberlain’s work in todays context is political and well as physical. Walking through the gallery with these artworks from the early 60’s through the 90’s I saw pieces of Detroit, bent and twisted, sitting on a pedestal of sorts – waiting to become part of history. Not unlike the Detroit of today.

I realize that is not the “approved reading” of his work – but today it just screamed at me.