Old cars headed for the scrap heap were John Chamberlain's art supplies. But everything mechanical about this work—an old car having been crushed up like a ball of paper, and the fact that it was originally an old car at all—all that falls away from the monumental lightness, the way rusted, scratched-up steel is elegantly folded onto itself like a curling fern, like an embryo, like a delicate egg waiting to be born again as something wholly new. This is rebirth indeed, elegance and a hovering sense of potential miraculously wrought from the most unlikely, seemingly unusable material.
More: read about an unexpected photograph of John Chamberlain here.
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This post is part of MFAH 100, a series featuring works from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in honor of its 100th birthday. 100 words on 100 works in 100 days.
Have a piece you’d like me to consider? Send a message or leave a comment—I can’t promise I’ll include it but I will give it a serious look.
Thank you, thank you...You are definitely helping me see as an artist, and I want to see as an artist! Why am I thinking immediately of Dante's THE DIVINE COMEDY? Ah, Beatrice, a guide, a muse....This makes me smile!