M HKA Ensembles

Miscellaneum, closed: 6.4 x 26.7 x 29.2 cm, open: 5.1 x 57.8 x 29.2 cm.

Collection: Courtesy Edward Kienholz, L.A. Louver Gallery.

Together, Edward and Nancy Kienholz create confrontational installations, assemblages and environments: life-size characters in a recognisable setting and in a characteristic silent pose surrounded by banal objects. Their oeuvre constitutes a ferocious commentary on racism, sexual stereotypes, poverty, greed, corruption, imperialism, patriotism, religion, alienation and – above all – moral hypocrisy.

In 1972, Edward Kienholz was asked by Harald Szeeman to take part in documenta 5 (a leading exhibition that takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany), where the installation Five Car Stud was shown for the first time: nine life-size figures and five cars in a harrowing night time setting.

The installation shows a circle of masked white men, lit by the headlights of the surrounding cars, who are in the act of pinning down and castrating a black man. In two of the vehicles, a child and a white woman – the son of one of the attackers, and the companion of the victim – witness the scene with powerless desperation. Five Car Stud is a timeless blow, an indictment of white supremacy and racist violence.

After documenta, the installation disappeared into a Japanese museum collection. In 2008, Nancy Reddin Kienholz, the wife and collaborator of Edward Kienholz, started the total restoration of Five Car Stud at the Kienholz Studio in Hope, Idaho. It was exhibited again at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles (2011-2012), the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark (2012) and at Fondazione Prada in Milan (2016-2017), which bought the work for its collection. 

In Sanguine/Bloedrood, the work is shown as it was first presented at documenta 46 years ago, outside the exhibition itself and in the darkened setting of a large dome.

The legendary installation took three years to complete, during which Edward Kienholz kept an accurate account of the artistic creation process. All its parts were extensively described in detail in a typed document. Kienholz also presents his view on the expected socio-political consequences of the work. A number of objects that form part of the documentation of the work are included in this exhibition.