Ed & Nancy Reddin Kienholz

Kienholz Retrospective at Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

KIENHOLZ: A RETROSPECTIVE Curated by Walter Hopps

With Robert Rauschenberg, Bruce Connor and George Herms, Ed Kienholz shared a mastery of assemblage that has been often imitated but never rivaled. As with all retrospective shows, the primary question in "Kienholz: A Retrospective," curated by the brilliant Walter Hopps, is how well these works sustain their visual and philosophical relevance over time. Although some Kienholz work sinks in its didacticism, much more of it in this show resonates with a fresh fearlessness that most contemporary art sorely lacks. Although his works about loneliness may be his most evocative, Kienholz' staunch support of women's issues long preceded the women's movement, feminist art and the fruitful collaboration with his wife Nancy Reddin Kienholz that spanned three decades. The synthesis between rugged, masculine materials and the decidedly feminine tenderness of content is remarkable in these works, which reveal the depth and complexity of Kienholz' character and form a stirring call to awareness about the continued disrespect for women in society.

Frequently, the Kienholzes use the female figure in a vulnerable, often prone position to communicate the inequality of the sexes. In "Conversation Piece" (1959), the paint-slathered mannequin legs of a young girl protrude horizontally from a wooden wall construction shaped like the mounting board used to hang large deer heads. Below the leg, a large, penis-shaped wood piece also juts forward. Kienholz puns on the word "mount" -- a sexual idiom more commonly applied to the stuffing of a dead animal for presentation -- and creates a jarring work of female brutalization that condemns man as a hunter, a braggart showing off his capture.

In "The Birthday" (1964), a pregnant woman lies strapped down to an operating table, a mirror between her legs. Several large plastic tubes erupt from her midsection, ending in sharp arrow points. Her open mouth is covered with a glass fishbowl, which contains an inverted rooster head. Her black marble eyes stare into nothingness. The entire tableau (except the rooster) is covered in dull silver paint, producing an eerie, nightmarish effect. Whether the scene depicts birth, rape, death, miscarriage or abortion is unclear. What is clear is that this woman is left to endure her horror alone, speechless, without the male partner -- the "cock" which still lingers near her mouth -- whose sexual appetite played a role in its cause.

"Back Seat Dodge" (1964), probably Kienholz' most famous piece, won't create the shock it did when first displayed, but its depravity still packs a wallop with the familiar sexual scenario between man and woman in the back seat of a car. One of the two keys to this work's success is Kienholz' choice to make the male figure from chicken wire, which also suggests the teenage sexual game of "chicken." Kienholz cleverly allows us to penetrate this male figure visually as he attempts to penetrate the female figure physically. There is the suggestion of the man's hollowness or emptiness, in an emotional or spiritual sense; yet the naturalistic form of his body, poised on tiptoed shoes, applies a great deal of force and weight upon the woman, who is literally buried into the upholstery.

The second and more important key to this work's success is that the moment Kienholz chose to freeze is a moment of intense foreplay prior to intercourse. Although many critics argue complicity in the woman's actions here, there is clearer evidence to the contrary. The litter of beer bottles indicates an induced lowering of moral guard has occurred, which may not have existed in a state of sobriety. Her hand near the man's stomach seems tentative as much as his hand, forcing up her dress, seems clumsy and unpleasantly rough. The caged head they share seems more suggestive of the woman's inability to get away from the man who is trapping her (his chicken wire body is also cage-like) than some sharing of a common desire. We cannot tell if or when the male will be stopped, whether the act is consenting or forced, whether the end result will be a shared, passionate joy or an unwanted pregnancy. Perhaps, in current terminology, we are watching a date rape in progress. Certainly the positions of the figures are uncomfortable, and the ambiguity of the work makes us uncomfortable. Part of the reason we stare at "Back Seat Dodge" for so long is from sheer frustration; it is like a soap opera cliffhanger turned off before the ending.

The "Rhinestone Beaver Peep Show Triptych "(1980) is a different sort of sexual horror in which a cast of a nude woman wearing black, knee-high boots sits atop a ladder. Several feet in front of her are two glaring lights, attached to a tall, narrow, rectangular steel frame, from which extends an elongated steel pole ending in a hook, which stops within a foot of her exposed genitalia. Her extended right arm grasps a cracked mirror, which reflects a scruffy gerbil held by a male arm. Beneath the male arm is a stainless steel sink basin. The woman's face is completely covered by a photograph of the gerbil, which is encased in a tin container held open by her left hand. In peep shows, men stand in tiny booths -- not unlike animals in cages -- masturbating to a provocatively dancing woman. Here, a woman devolves from human being and equal into a furry animal or pet, whose frenetic movements may suggest both the sexualized dance of the female and the pent-up sexual energy of the male. Rarely has a sculpture presented so graphically the dehumanization of women.

The most affecting Kienholz work about women, however, is 1962"s "The Illegal Abortion." A harsh light is shed by the exposed bulb of a lamp, which is connected by a strap to the hull of a shopping cart. On the cart sits a split sack of concrete, which oozes out from a gash in its middle. Bloodstained rags wither in a bucket and rusted medical tools seemed carelessly tossed into a ceramic cooking pot and bedpan. Nearby rests an incongruously cheerful orange stool, its playful color and child-size scale a startling contrast.

The emotional trauma of losing a baby, whether by nature (miscarriage) or by man (abortion), is an intense and lasting experience for any woman. Here Kienholz visually matches the emotional gravity of this experience with a slouched, ripped concrete sack that appears heavy enough to fall right through the floor. The intensity of the violent and horrific metaphor is only multiplied by the garish, unsanitary environment and the anthropomorphic representation of the female body as a vulgar and inanimate object that -- intentional or not -- brings to life the ugly phrase "useless sack of shit." It's incredible to think that Kienholz made this in 1962, when the word "abortion" was never spoken and women had to lurk like fugitives to Mexico or the homes of sympathetic women in the U.S. to obtain one. Over thirty years later, the issue is still a looming crack in the national dam of our psyche.

Even in the Kienholz works that are less violent, the social position of the woman is defined by her relationship to a man. In "The Wait," an old dress covers the skeleton of a woman seated in an armchair. Mason jars containing monochromatic trinkets hang like a bulbous necklace of fragile memories. Inside the largest jar is an animal skull; its lid a small photograph of a young woman. On the stained, rose-patterned wall behind her is an enormous portrait of her dead husband, presiding imposingly over the scene like a tyrant. The effect is repeated less successfully in "The Tiptoe Widow," in which a headless, cast female nude stands on tiptoe with one arm covering her private portion while the other, prosthetic arm holds a faded rose inside a television set. Also inside the TV is a yellowed obituary of a young soldier, presumably her husband. Someone only stands on tiptoe to see something higher than eye level, but this widow has no eyes to see and she is forever crippled by the part of her still stuck in the past.

Despite the critical acclaim garnished him throughout his career, Ed Kienholz always wore the shoes of the underdog. Alone and with Nancy Reddin, Kienholz had a great deal to communicate about the hypocrisy and injustice of culture, gender and ethnic-based prejudices of the people in power, be they in politics, religion or society at large. Kienholz' legacy is emotionally compelling, and at times transcendent, experiences through sculpture which vibrates with the pain, loneliness and injustice of real life. May we be wise enough to see these horrors, and brave enough to change them.