John Chamberlain’s foam sculptures are some of my favorite works of art in existence, partly because they are crumbling before our eyes. The pace at which they will cease to exist is fascinating. What could possibly be done to thwart it? Nothing? What’s being done? Nothing?
Yesterday a Chamberlain foam sculpture that belonged to Seth Siegelaub sold in Philadelphia. It was $11,520, which was within the estimate, but whatever. It feels impossible to say what it is worth [sic], but that’s not so interesting. A bottle of wine or a superbowl ticket could cost that much, and it’s tedious to hear about.
The point here is, this is an artwork whose fate is known, and finite, and whose condition is extraordinary. From Freeman’s [emphasis added because holy smokes]: “As noted in the catalogue raisonné, because of the vulnerability of the material to light and air, the sculptures have had a tendency to disintegrate. Piece has yellowed with age and is crumbling throughout, as expected. There is an approximately 5 inch wide crater and some other, smaller areas of loss. Scattered surface soiling and hairs throughout. Areas of discoloration throughout, possibly inherent to medium. Inscribed with inventory number “Dwan 1990” and “G SS-15″ in ink. Please request additional images.”
I am not an uptight person, not easily grossed out or shocked, I’m pretty go with the flow, I think. Until I read the phrase, “hairs throughout.” Did I request additional images? Oh, absolutely.
Because hairs throughout notwithstanding, these disintegrating, crumbling sculptures demand to be seen in the round, from every possible angle. And they reward that exploration by almost always refusing to disclose how they were made, or what their constituent parts–a block of foam and a cord—began as. This opacity is often missing in Chamberlain’s car part sculptures, which somehow reveal their sources more readily.
Plus they stay bent. With these foam chunks and a lasso, I feel like Chamberlain executed a virtuosic sculptural gesture, and froze it, trapping a tension inside. Have any of them ever been released and unfurled? Have any been rebound? Refabricated?
These extraordinary, ephemeral sculptures, made of a simple, even banal operation that is nonetheless unspecifiable, unknowable, unrepeatable, are all disintegrating. How many are already gone? What is being done to study and document and understand them while they still survive? It’s like waiting until someone’s in hospice to ask for their oral history. There should be an international mission to scan and model and record Chamberlain’s foam sculptures, systematic experiments to repeat the form and fold and tension of their wrapping, mapping the choreography, building the vocabulary, live performances by Chamberlain re-enactors. So much that could be done before they…
Too bad no one’s gonna do any of that for an $11,000 sculpture.
Lot 20, 24 Mar 2026, John Chamberlain, Liu Ting, 1966, est. $8-12,000 [freemansauction]
Previously, related: The Making of A John Chamberlain Sofa