1966 - 1968
John Chamberlain, Untitled, 1966
1966
He receives the first of two John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowships. These fellowships are awarded to individuals who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or creative ability in the arts.
Chamberlain experiments with making a small number of fiberglass sculptures based on French-curve drawings. These sculptures are solid and curvaceous, sculpted around steel armatures. Some of them incorporate metal detailing on the surface. However, Chamberlain later views these and his fabricated metal sculptures from late 1965 as unsuccessful experiments.
Spring Semester: Teaches graduate students as a visiting artist in the Department of Art at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
February 8-26: Contributes a piece titled "Tiny Piece #4/Scotch Spur" (1961) to "Hommage à Caissa," an exhibition organized by Marcel Duchamp to benefit the American Chess Foundation at Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery in New York.
March: Participates in "25": Painting and Sculpture, an exhibition organized by Seth Siegelaub in New York.
April 20-May 15: Participates in "Contemporary American Sculpture: Selection I," an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, featuring promised gifts from the Howard and Jean Lipman Foundation.
During the summer, he stays at gallerist Virginia Dwan's Malibu beach home, where he begins creating sculptures with urethane foam. This material presents challenges due to its tendency to deteriorate rapidly.
November 29, 1966-January 7, 1967: his solo exhibition "John Chamberlain" takes place at Dwan Gallery in Los Angeles, featuring over two dozen foam sculptures. The sculptures are installed on the floor or on plinths of varying heights.
Chamberlain conceives a series of participatory sculptural environments, proposing ideas such as "Rollerderby," "Loveseat," "Lovenest," and "Grandstand." These concepts involve interactive experiences for visitors but are not realized at this time.
December 16, 1966-February 5, 1967: Participates in the "Annual Exhibition: Contemporary Sculpture and Prints" at the Whitney Museum of American Art. One of his works on display is "Untitled" (1965 JCCR 219).
John Chamberlain, Royal Ventor, 1967
1967
Chamberlain conceives three proposals for television, all of which remain unrealized. These ideas explore themes of global connectivity, perspective shift, and sociological experimentation.
Returns to New York, leaving his family in Santa Fe, and shares a studio with artist Neil Williams at 60 Grand Street.
January 7-February 29: Receives his first solo museum exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art, titled "Gallery 26: John Chamberlain." The exhibition features a selection of his sculptures from different periods.
February 4-26: Participates in exhibitions such as "Ten Years at Leo Castelli Gallery" in New York.
Chamberlain becomes a regular at Max's Kansas City, a nightclub and hangout for New York's creative communities. He exchanges artworks to cover his bar tab.
April: Exhibits foam sculptures in "New Work: Chamberlain, Lichtenstein, Stella" at Leo Castelli Gallery.
April 28-June 25: Participates in American Sculpture of the Sixties, Los Angeles County Musuem of Art (travels to Philadelphia Museum of Art, September 15-October 29).
June 23-August 27: Participates in Sculpture: A generation of Innovation, Art Institute of Chicago.
July: Travels to St. Tropez to attend the public premiere of Pablo Picasso's play "Le désir attrapé par la queue," which features Warhol stars Ultra Violet and Taylor Mead.
Chamberlain starts creating galvanized-steel sculptures i a studio at 405 East Thirteenth Street (and First Avenue). Using fabricated boxes that he crushes in a compactor on White Street in Tribeca and assembles into new works in his studio.
Fall: Participates in the Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition at Hunter College in the Bronx, organized by the Bronx Council on the Arts.
October 10-November 9: His solo exhibition "John Chamberlain: Skulpturen" takes place at Galerie Rudolf Zwirner in Cologne and later travels to Galerie Heiner Friedrich in Munich.
Heiner Friedrich becomes an important advocate of Chamberlain’s work and will be one of the founders of the Dia Art Foundation in 1974.
October 20, 1967-February 4, 1968: Participates in the Guggenheim International Exhibition's "Sculpture from Twenty Nations" at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York (the exhibition travels to Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, National Gallery of Canada, and Montreal Museum of Fine Arts).
John Chamberlain, Self-Portrait, Gelatin Silver Print, 1968
1968
Chamberlain participates in the exhibition "Satisfaction" at Galerie Heiner Friedrich in Munich, alongside artists like Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, and Tom Wesselmann.
Late January: Joins the cast and crew of Andy Warhol's film "Lonesome Cowboys" on location in Arizona. Although he turns down roles in the film, he plays a cameo role and creates his first film, "Wedding Night," and later the experimental film "The Secret Life of Hernando Cortez."
March-November: Participates in exhibition "Sculpture, Murals and Fountains at HemisFair'68" in San Antonio, Texas.
June 14-August 9: Participates in "Sammlung 1968 Karl Ströher" at Neue Pinakothek in Munich. (travels to Kunstverein Hamburg, August 24–October 6; Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, March 1–April 14, 1969; Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, April 25–June 17, 1969; and Kunsthalle Bern, July 12– August 17 and August 23–September 28, 1969; Munich and Hamburg.
Summer: Travels to London and makes the film "Wide Point," which is projected on seven screens and accompanied by three soundtracks. The film is an experiment in visual and auditory experience without a conventional narrative.
Chamberlain also develops concepts for unrealized films, includimg "The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover" and "Yaltopili," envisioning a series of experimental films using historical figures as departure points.
He collaborates with art historian Edward Leffingwell on the concept of the film "Thumbsuck," exploring themes of intervals, disturbance, eroticism, and music.
June 29–September 1: Participates in Sculpture Now,† Heckscher Museum, Huntington, New York (Royal Ventor, 1967.
July 19–August 25: Participates in
An Exhibition of Monumental Sculpture,† Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, organized with the Cleveland Museum of Art and Kent State University to coincide with the performance at the Center by the Cleveland Orchestra.
October 6–November 3: Participates in Soft and Apparently Soft Sculpture, curated by Lucy R. Lippard for the American Federation of Arts traveling exhibitions program, Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Athens (travels to State University of New York, Oswego, November 24–December 22; Cedar Rapids Art Center, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, January 12–February 9, 1969; Michigan State University, East Lansing, March 2–30, 1969; Andrew Dickson White Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, April 20– May 18, 1969.
December 17, 1968–February 9, 1969: Participates in Annual Exhibition: Contemporary American Sculpture,† Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (Brophill Lowdown, 1967).