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Lot Essay
John Chamberlain’s 2006 sculpture, Chromo Domo, created within the last five years of his life, intrinsically embodies the artist’s stylistic evolution through both its form and color. Shortly after he began his career, Chamberlain was quickly recognized for his innovative color use, which went against the formalist idea that color was just for paintings, and he continued to develop and perfect it throughout his lifetime. This piece, like most of his free-standing sculptures, has a centrifugal composition: the largely unmanipulated solid metal elements in the center are juxtaposed by the outward-extending, bursting ribbons of brightly colored, highly worked strips of sheet metal. As alluded to in the title, Chromo Domo, or "very colorful", is the marriage of found color, as was typical in Chamberlain’s early sculptures, and added color by way of graffiti, airbrush, freehand painting, and the like. Fellow artist, and one of his biggest critical fans, Donald Judd said, "Chamberlain is the only sculptor really using color, the full range, not just metallic shades; his color is as particular, complex and structural as any good painter's" (D. Judd, "In the Galleries," in D. Judd, Complete Writings: 1959-1975, Halifax, 1975, p. 46).
At the start of his career, Chamberlain chose car metal as his artistic medium because it offered him “the correct resistance so that [he could] make a form – not overform it or underform it” (J. Chamberlain, quoted in M. Auping, 30 Years: Interviews and Outtakes, Fort Worth, 2007, p. 97). The artist would harness the malleable qualities of metal, yet simultaneously respect its resistance and, while he carefully chose the “found” metal pieces with which he worked, he did not initially have a visualization of the final product. Instead, he would work with the material and use his instinct and the characteristics of the material, including its color, to compose a sculpture, much like how a poet selects and organizes words into a poem.
Chamberlain often referred to his use of instinct and intuition in his artistic process: “There is material to be seen around you every day, but one day something – some one thing – pops out at you, and you pick it up, and you take it over, and it fits; it’s just the right thing at the right moment. You can do the same thing with words or with metal” (J. Chamberlain, quoted in J. Sylvester, "Auto/Bio: Conversations with John Chamberlain," in John Chamberlain: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Sculpture 1954-85, New York, 1986, p. 11). In his earlier works, Chamberlain approached color in a similar way; he would choose metal elements of car exteriors and create a painterly sculpture through the combination of intertwined, various colored metal. However, starting around 1962, he started painting the metal, as he “felt the material needed a little help” (J. Chamberlain, quoted in D. Waldman and J. Chamberlain, John Chamberlain: A Retrospective Exhibition, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1971, p. 20). He also began to go beyond bumpers and other more obvious car parts, and included elements of sheet metal, as they could be more expressive, as seen in the almost tangible energy of the composition of the elements in Chromo Domo.
Often recognized as existing within his own artistic movement, Chamberlain’s work is a myriad of ideas and formal elements of Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art and Baroque Art. When a viewer is confronted by the visually captivating Chromo Domo, the act of twisting and arranging the metal that is evoked recalls the emotional and spontaneous gestures of Abstract Expressionist painting; the curled metal expressively hangs in the air like brushstrokes on a canvas. The individual metallic ribbons feature a variety of patterns and painting techniques, and the viewer can easily envision the Pollock-esque energy involved in applying the color to the silver “canvas.” Additionally, Pop Art is called to mind in the use of a mass-produced object, the automobile, as a medium, and the splashy, pops of cotton-candy pink, sky blue, cherry red and electric yellow allude to consumerism and the eye-catching colors commonly used in advertising. Chamberlain’s works also have the drama of Baroque art, and his careful arrangement of the materials that juxtaposes negative space and physical elements calls to mind Caravaggio’s balance of light and shadow in his paintings. Furthermore, the twisted, torqued pieces of painted metal are dynamically arranged with so much suggested movement that it recalls Classical renderings of draped fabric and extends beyond the often static nature of the sculptural medium.
Chromo Domo is a seminal work by a truly innovative American artist. The central organization of instantly recognizable car parts in their manufactured colors, the solid silver and bright red bumpers, nods to Chamberlain’s early works with their more “found” formalism. Contrastingly, the almost overworked, curled, patterned sheet metal recalls his career evolution that included crushed aluminum sculptures and foam works, as well as his expansion of form and color use which evolved from his early inspirations. “Kline gave me the structure,” Chamberlain once said in an interview. “De Kooning gave me the color.”
At the start of his career, Chamberlain chose car metal as his artistic medium because it offered him “the correct resistance so that [he could] make a form – not overform it or underform it” (J. Chamberlain, quoted in M. Auping, 30 Years: Interviews and Outtakes, Fort Worth, 2007, p. 97). The artist would harness the malleable qualities of metal, yet simultaneously respect its resistance and, while he carefully chose the “found” metal pieces with which he worked, he did not initially have a visualization of the final product. Instead, he would work with the material and use his instinct and the characteristics of the material, including its color, to compose a sculpture, much like how a poet selects and organizes words into a poem.
Chamberlain often referred to his use of instinct and intuition in his artistic process: “There is material to be seen around you every day, but one day something – some one thing – pops out at you, and you pick it up, and you take it over, and it fits; it’s just the right thing at the right moment. You can do the same thing with words or with metal” (J. Chamberlain, quoted in J. Sylvester, "Auto/Bio: Conversations with John Chamberlain," in John Chamberlain: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Sculpture 1954-85, New York, 1986, p. 11). In his earlier works, Chamberlain approached color in a similar way; he would choose metal elements of car exteriors and create a painterly sculpture through the combination of intertwined, various colored metal. However, starting around 1962, he started painting the metal, as he “felt the material needed a little help” (J. Chamberlain, quoted in D. Waldman and J. Chamberlain, John Chamberlain: A Retrospective Exhibition, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1971, p. 20). He also began to go beyond bumpers and other more obvious car parts, and included elements of sheet metal, as they could be more expressive, as seen in the almost tangible energy of the composition of the elements in Chromo Domo.
Often recognized as existing within his own artistic movement, Chamberlain’s work is a myriad of ideas and formal elements of Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art and Baroque Art. When a viewer is confronted by the visually captivating Chromo Domo, the act of twisting and arranging the metal that is evoked recalls the emotional and spontaneous gestures of Abstract Expressionist painting; the curled metal expressively hangs in the air like brushstrokes on a canvas. The individual metallic ribbons feature a variety of patterns and painting techniques, and the viewer can easily envision the Pollock-esque energy involved in applying the color to the silver “canvas.” Additionally, Pop Art is called to mind in the use of a mass-produced object, the automobile, as a medium, and the splashy, pops of cotton-candy pink, sky blue, cherry red and electric yellow allude to consumerism and the eye-catching colors commonly used in advertising. Chamberlain’s works also have the drama of Baroque art, and his careful arrangement of the materials that juxtaposes negative space and physical elements calls to mind Caravaggio’s balance of light and shadow in his paintings. Furthermore, the twisted, torqued pieces of painted metal are dynamically arranged with so much suggested movement that it recalls Classical renderings of draped fabric and extends beyond the often static nature of the sculptural medium.
Chromo Domo is a seminal work by a truly innovative American artist. The central organization of instantly recognizable car parts in their manufactured colors, the solid silver and bright red bumpers, nods to Chamberlain’s early works with their more “found” formalism. Contrastingly, the almost overworked, curled, patterned sheet metal recalls his career evolution that included crushed aluminum sculptures and foam works, as well as his expansion of form and color use which evolved from his early inspirations. “Kline gave me the structure,” Chamberlain once said in an interview. “De Kooning gave me the color.”