I was leaving the Magazzino Italian Art Museum in Cold Spring, NY yesterday, when I noticed this funny bumper sticker on a car in the parking lot: “My other car is a John Chamberlain” requires a little art history knowledge in order to get the joke. If you’re not familiar with John Chamberlain or his art, I’ve included a couple pictures of his sculptures that I took at Dia Beacon a few years back.
John Chamberlain (1927 – 2011) was an American artist who made sculpture using scrap-metal auto parts (he was also a photographer and filmmaker). He started making sculptures like this in the mid-to-late 1950s, and one could argue that they are utilizing ideas of abstract expressionist painting (popular at the time) but in three dimensions. This three dimensionality is one thing I really like about his freestanding sculptures like these, because as you walk around it, it takes on a different appearance based on which angle you’re viewing it from.
At any rate, seeing that bumper sticker made me laugh, and the fact that I saw it in the parking lot of an art museum makes total sense.