John Chamberlain

Anthony Ralph Gallery, New York
Private Collection, Switzerland (acquired from the above in 1989 and sold: Sotheby's, New York, November 16, 1995, lot 396B)
Private Collection, Los Angeles
Galerie Jablonka, Cologne 
Vanthournot Collection, Belgium (acquired from the above in 1996 and sold: Sotheby's, New York, November 14, 2006, lot 18)
Acquired at the above sale by A. Alfred Taubman

This work is in very good and sound condition overall. The scattered signs of wear, such as scratches, rust and paint loss are inherent to the nature of the found material and the artist’s working method. In some areas, the paint has formed craquelure or become brittle and lifts slightly from steel but all of these areas remain stable. There is evidence of label residue visible on the outwardly protruding silver element at the top.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

"The definition of sculpture for me is stance and attitude. All sculpture takes a stance. If it dances on one foot, or, even if it dances while sitting down, it has light-on-its-feet stance." John Chamberlain (Exh. Cat., New York, L&M Arts, Inc., John Chamberlain: Early Years, 2009, p. 73)

Coaxing poetic expression from elaborately interlocked automobile parts, John Chamberlain’s bold, seductive, and ineffably cool Captain Cooke from 1988 utilizes Chamberlain’s iconic repertoire of forms while asserting a singular presence that surprises at every turn of the eye. Fashioned entirely out of found and repurposed automobile parts, the present work displays the genius of Chamberlain’s particular mode of artistic creation. Chamberlain actively mined the latent symbolism of his chosen material—the mass-produced car parts that the artist exploited for their formal potential also unmistakably connoted visions of progress, modernity and the American dream. Captain Cooke’s commanding volumetric presence achieves an expressive power that balances the heroic with the intimate, arresting contradictions between expansion and contraction in the multiplicity of its surface. 

Chamberlain’s manipulation of volume forces the viewer to circumnavigate the sculpture when observing it, and his rigorous devotion to altering the very form of his materials ensures the viewer a complicated visual experience. A shadow of violence hangs heavy over the entire work, enshrouding its folded metallic carcass and serrated edges of torn metal with the memory of Chamberlain’s brutal action. Here we sense the visceral ferocity of an artistic event in much the same way as we may with a monumental black and white painting by Franz Kline or one of Jackson Pollock's majestic all-over drip paintings. Yet at the same time, we may also detect the unavoidable suggestion of narrative violence, specifically the invocation of a car crash itself. Despite these powerful conveyances, Chamberlain also riffs on the presentation of a sanctified object of high art, turning industrial detritus into a beautiful sculpture composed of intersecting lines and dramatic forms that offers multiple suggestions of interpretation, from the physiognomic to the anthropomorphic to the archaeological. Although on initial viewing, one is tempted to read the activated surface in terms of violence, Chamberlain ultimately contradicts this facile interpretation. In interviews with Julie Sylvester during the early 1980s, Chamberlain commented on the early reactions to his sculptures: “I don’t know why people think that my work is about violence. [Claes Oldenburg] got it and they didn’t. He understood that there is a softness in the steel material, especially in the steel that covers a car” (cited in Julie Sylvester, John Chamberlain: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Sculpture, 1954-1985, New York, 1986, p. 15).

Chamberlain’s crushed assemblages of automotive steel have secured him a place in art history and examples reside in nearly every major museum collection. In the world of sculpture, Chamberlain is celebrated for the introduction of non-traditional materials, for an unprecedented sculptural process of clustering and folding metal. His uncanny ability to humanize cold mass-produced machine parts is wrought with contradictions and complexities, but Captain Cooke provides the ultimate vantage point to access the nucleus of this extraordinarily influential artistic journey.