Grim Gothic

Nowadays ‘Kienholz’ is a brand. Its founder, Edward Kienholz (1927–94), was a self-taught artist who grew up on a farm on the borders of Washington and Idaho. He made a living as an odd-job man and drove a truck stencilled ‘Ed Kienholz Expert, Estab. 1952’, before co-founding a commercial art gallery and establishing a reputation as an artist of nightmarish surrealistic installations, using real furniture and life-size figures. In 1972 he met and married Nancy Reddin (born 1943), and in 1981 he issued a statement that all works from 1972 onwards were co-authored by him and Nancy. Since his death more than a decade ago, Nancy Reddin Kienholz has continued to make sculptures/objects/ installations in the Kienholz signature style, and the current West End show contains examples of her solo work as well as earlier collaborative pieces.

Couples working on the same piece of art is an effective way of disposing of competition within a relationship. Instead of de Kooning and his wife Elaine (or indeed Pollock and Lee Krasner) having to compare progress, the production can be shared and the anxieties halved. Recently, it seems to have proved a popular option: Christo and Jeanne-Claude is one such formidable duo, Claus Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen another. The business of art originated by a partnership does however pose an interesting question. Can one half continue successfully after the death of the other? What would Gilbert be without George, or vice versa? And if the brand does indeed survive death, what’s to prevent it from going on for ever? An eventuality even Warhol, with his supernormal manipulation of market expectations, was not quite equal to arranging. Whatever the case, ‘Kienholz’ is very much alive and kicking, as can be seen in this stirring exhibition, the first London showing of their work since 1971.