John Chamberlain: Challenging the Status Quo Through Sculpture
how the sculptor turned the everyday into the unusual—and his continued influence on abstract art
Zoe, aged 3, with Chamberlain at her parents’ Florida home
It’s no secret that we have an affinity for Abstract Expressionism in our projects. In the case of the late sculptor John Chamberlain, however, the fondness is personal. When Chamberlain moved to Sarasota, Florida, in the early 1980s, he came into the company of local gallerists and art collectors Steven and Karen Feldman (also known as the parents of Zoe Feldman). “I remember him as funny, inventive, and weird in the best way,” said Zoe. A particularly enduring life metaphor he shared with my dad was comparing metal work with child rearing: instead of trying to mold it into what you’d like, you take it for what it is, and guide it to be the best version of itself.
One reason Chamberlain worked with crushed metal was because of its availability and raw nature. His distinctive, industrial sculptures explored the intersection of styles, drawing from Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism, and High Baroque.
“In finding your place in sculpture, you need to find the material that offers you just the right resistance. As it turns out, car metal offers me the correct resistance so that I can make a form—not overform it or underform it.”
Taking initial inspiration from his time on an aircraft carrier as a member of the US Navy in the mid-1940s, Chamberlain often used scrap metal from automobiles to craft his sculptures. “His work is uninterrupted. He puts a piece together but doesn’t contort it—he creates beauty within the thing itself. Everything he created looks authentic and real, not forced,” said Zoe. Over his 60-year career, he experimented with urethane foam, galvanized steel, and plexiglass—but always seemed to return to automobile parts as his medium of choice.
An original Chamberlain piece will run you in the multiple hundreds of thousands, but that doesn’t mean you can’t bring the artist’s influence into your home. Some ideas below…
