Sixties Surreal | Art & Artists
Body Ego
3
The works on view here are composed of forms and materials that evoke the sensual feelings of having and exploring a body of flesh and bones—from the erotic to the anxious. Many of the artists were featured in two 1967 exhibitions: Eccentric Abstraction in New York and Funk in Berkeley, California. Eccentric Abstraction, curated by Lucy Lippard, presented artists, including Bruce Nauman, Don Potts, Louise Bourgeois, and Eva Hesse, whose work was rigorously abstract yet retained a sensuous quality. The artists whose work was shown by the curator Peter Selz in Funk, among them Jeremy Anderson, Ken Price, and Franklin Williams, were more explicit in their references to guts, fingers, and anthropomorphic forms. The objects the Funk artists produced may seem innocuous at first glance, but the subtle protrusions and openings of works such as Ken Price’s S. L. Green (1963) or Franklin Williams’s Untitled (1966) evoke both the anxieties and the ecstasies of our physical being. Looking beyond these historic exhibitions, this gallery brings together artists from across the country who worked with unorthodox materials to create objects of embodied abstraction.
Jeremy Anderson, Riverrun, 1965
Made from redwood and pine found in the artist's Northern California backyard, Jeremy Anderson's Riverrun was inspired by his fascination with intestinal forms, medical school models, and the elongated figures in old comic books like Plastic Man (1941–56) and Powerhouse Pepper (1942–48). The tubular form at the center of this sculpture reflects Anderson's interest in combining the bodily and the geological, echoing his mystical interest in being one with nature. Anderson shares connections with many artists in this gallery: his work was included in the 1967 Funk exhibition, and his first New York exhibition was a two-person show with Louise Bourgeois in 1952.
Artists
- Jeremy Anderson
- Benny Andrews
- Kenneth Anger
- Diane Arbus
- Robert Arneson
- Ralph Arnold
- Romare Bearden
- Jordan Belson
- Ed Bereal
- Wallace Berman
- Judith Bernstein
- Lee Bontecou
- Louise Bourgeois
- Joan Brown
- Kay Brown
- Roger Brown
- T.C. Cannon
- Eduardo Carrillo
- Mel Casas
- Vija Celmins
- Barbara Chase-Riboud
- Ching Ho Cheng
- Judy Chicago
- Bruce Conner
- Jean Conner
- Adger Cowans
- Robert Crumb
- Dale Brockman Davis
- Jay DeFeo
- Roy De Forest
- Martha Edelheit
- Melvin Edwards
- Ed Emshwiller
- Roy Fridge
- Lee Friedlander
- Rupert Garcia
- Nancy Graves
- Nancy Grossman
- Barbara Hammer
- David Hammons
- Alex Hay
- Wally Hedrick
- Mike Henderson
- Eva Hesse
- Oscar Howe
- Luchita Hurtado
- Miyoko Ito
- Suzanne Jackson
- Ken Jacobs
- Jae Jarrell
- Jess
- Luis Jimenez
- Daniel LaRue Johnson
- Barbara Jones-Hogu
- Edward Kienholz
- Kiki Kogelnik
- Shigeko Kubota
- Yayoi Kusama
- Lynn Hershman Leeson
- Linda Lomahaftewa
- Lee Lozano
- Marisol
- David McManaway
- Ron Miyashiro
- Bruce Nauman
- Gunvor Nelson
- Senga Nengudi
- Jim Nutt
- Claes Oldenburg
- John Outterbridge
- Edward Owens
- Kenneth Price
- Noah Purifoy
- Joseph Raffael
- Christina Ramberg
- Deborah Remington
- Faith Ringgold
- Suellen Rocca
- James Rosenquist
- Martha Rosler
- Barbara Rossi
- Edward Ruscha
- Betye Saar
- Niki de Saint Phalle
- Lucas Samaras
- Peter Saul
- Raymond Saunders
- Carolee Schneemann
- Fritz Scholder
- Kay Sekimachi
- Joan Semmel
- Jack Smith
- Ming Smith
- Robert Smithson
- Nancy Spero
- Anita Steckel
- Harold Stevenson
- Sturtevant
- Paul Thek
- Michael Cullen Todd
- Carlos Villa
- Shawn Walker
- Timothy Washington
- H.C. Westermann
- Jack Whitten
- Dorothy Wiley
- William T. Wiley
- Hannah Wilke
- Franklin Williams
- Karl Wirsum