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Chamberlain | Prouvé

In collaboration with Galerie Patrick Seguin

February 27–April 4, 2015
555 West 24th Street, New York

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Installation video

Installation view All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view

All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view

All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view

All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view

All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view

All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view

All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view

All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view

All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view

All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging

Installation view All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

All sculpture by John Chamberlain © 2015 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © Estate of Jean Prouvé/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Rob McKeever

About

Every time I turn around I see more openings for the material to do something else.
—John Chamberlain

It seemed to me that sheet steel offered unlimited possibilities: cut up, then bent, rolled, and welded, it let you create all the profiles you needed for specific purposes, from straight lines to angles to curves.
—Jean Prouvé

Gagosian New York, in collaboration with Galerie Patrick Seguin, Paris, is pleased to present works by American artist John Chamberlain and French architect and designer Jean Prouvé, two twentieth-century innovators who harnessed the strength and suppleness of metal to new potential in their respective fields. Large- and small-scale sculptures by Chamberlain will be in visual dialogue with two prefabricated houses and key architectural models by Prouvé.

John Chamberlain began to create distinctive metal sculptures from industrial detritus during the late 1950s. While freely experimenting with a range of inexpensive materials—including paper bags, Plexiglas, foam rubber, and aluminum foil—again and again he returned to metal car components such as bumpers and hoods, which he dubbed “art supplies.” The assemblages preserve traces of his manipulation of machine-made elements: crumpling, bending, twisting, painting, and welding steel to form deliberate gestures, he then fused these individual sections into thrilling multicolored aggregations that range from miniature to monumental. The contrasting parts of the majestic CLOUDEDLEOPAROEXPRESSO (2010) suggest clusters of layered, three-dimensional brushstrokes, while the intertwined parts of ENTIRELYFEARLESS (2009) appear as a chrome and satin red tangle.

Jean Prouvé is widely acknowledged as one of the twentieth century’s most influential industrial designers. A self-taught engineer and passionate teacher, metalworker, architect, and designer, he brought a strong social conscience to his pragmatic structural approach. Prouvé created furniture for the home, office, and classroom—as well as prefabricated houses, building components, and façades—for more than sixty years. Consistent with his belief that “in their construction there is no difference between furniture and buildings,” he applied the same principles used in the making of furniture to his architecture of the postwar reconstruction. Streamlining research, development, and production, he was instrumental in ushering in building processes based on mechanized industry rather than artisanal craft.

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