Wallace Berman Retrospective

Friday, 05 September 2008 00:42

LONDON - Camden Arts Centre presents the first retrospective exhibition of American artist Wallace Berman (1926 – 1976) in the UK. Considered by many to be the ‘father’ of Californian assemblage, he was hugely influential on a group of artists and poets to emerge from the legacy of the Beat generation in the late 1950s and 1960s. On exhibition 25 September through 23 November, 2008.

This exhibition includes Berman’s early drawings for Jazz record covers; his mail-art publication Semina containing poetry and images by Berman and his friends; his signature Verifax collage work as well as individual paintings such as Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag and his Portrait of Kenneth Anger. Verifax is a predecessor to the photocopy machine, Berman used it to reproduce images from newspapers and magazines.

Berman’s only surviving sculpture, Homage to Herman Hesse, goes on display; it was made for his first exhibition which was prematurely closed by police. Shown alongside are his fragile rock boxes and a selection of the many photographs he took throughout his life. His 16mm film Aleph, collated over a ten year period, is screened and complemented by posters, book covers and postcards.

Berman’s influence is far reaching, and through his contact with Robert Fraser during his only visit to London in 1967, Peter Blake included his portrait on the cover of The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and he appeared, with a punning reference to his publication Semina, as a seed-sower in the film Easy Rider.

A publication will accompany the show with newly commissioned text by writer Kristine McKenna. Wallace Berman (1926-1974) was born in Staten Island, New York, moving with his family to the Jewish district in Los Angeles during the 1930s. Expelled from school for gambling, Berman immersed himself in the growing West Coast jazz scene. He briefly attended art school but found the training too academic. In 1949, working in a factory finishing antique furniture, he began to make sculptures from left-over materials. By the early 1950s, Berman had become a full-time artist and an active figure in the beat community in Los Angeles and San Francisco. His first solo exhibition held at the Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles (1957) was closed prematurely by the police. Berman then moved to San Francisco, when, in 1960, after publishing the first five editions of Semina, he moved again to Larkspur in Marin County and lived on a house boat, founding Semina art gallery. In 1961 he returned to Los Angeles, when, four years later, his house was destroyed in a landslide and all his photographic archive was lost. He settled in Topanga Canyon, LA and began work on his Verifax collages. He continued creating these works, as well as rock assemblages, until his death in a car accident in 1976 at 49 years old.

Wallace Berman participated in a number of exhibitions including a show at the Robert Fraser Gallery, London (1966); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1968); The Jewish Museum , New York (1968); West Coast 1945-1969’ at Pasadena Art Museum and touring; Poets of the Cities, New York and San Francisco, 1950-1965’, (traveling to Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, San Francisco and Museum of Art and Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, 1974). Collage and Assemblage, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art; Environment and the New Art 1960-1975’, University of California, Davies; Art as a Muscular Principle, Mount Holyoak College, Hadley, Massachusetts (1975). After his death in 1976, his work was exhibited at Newport Harbor Art Gallery, California (1976); California Painting and Sculpture: The Modern Era, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and traveling to the Smithsonian Institute, Washington. He had retrospective exhibitions at The Whitney Museum of American Art (1978) and Otis Art Institute of Los Angeles County (touring to The Fort Worth Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley and Seattle Art Museum, 1978-1980). A major retrospective of his work titled Support the Revolution was held at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Amsterdam (1992). The exhibition Semina Culture: Wallace Berman and his circle, curated by Michael Duncan and Kristine McKenna, travelled to various museums in the US from 2005-2007. Recent exhibitions include a solo show Wallace Berman, Art is Love is God, an introduction, 1957-1976, MAMCO, Geneva (2000) and group shows Traces du Sacré, Centre Pompiou – Musée National d’Art Modern, Paris (2008), Art since the 1960s: California Experiments, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, USA (2008).

Camden Arts Centre is a venue for contemporary visual art and education, where ideas are made visible and people of all ages and abilities can engage in the creative process of making art.  Our pioneering and varied programme of artist-led courses and other education activities has gained an international reputation as a model of good practice.  We are known as a forward-thinking organisation where artists and others can see, make and talk about art.

Camden Arts Centre, Arkwright Road, London NW3 6DG - T: +44 (0)20 7472 5500; F: +44 (0)20 7472 5501

www.camdenartscentre.org