Wallace Berman, the Father of California Assemblage

Camden Arts Center
Arkwright Road
London
+44 (0)20 7472 5500
Wallace Berman
September 26-
November 23, 2008

This is the first retrospective exhibition of American artist Wallace Berman (1926-1976), considered by many to be the "father" of Californian assemblage. He was hugely influential on a group of artists and poets to emerge from the legacy of the Beat generation in the late 1950s and 1960s.

It includes early drawings for Jazz record covers; his mail-art publication Semina containing poetry and images by Berman and his friends; his signature Verifax collage work as well as paintings such as Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag and his Portrait of Kenneth Anger.

Look out for Berman’s only surviving sculpture, Homage to Herman Hesse — it was made for his first exhibition which was prematurely closed by police. Shown alongside are his fragile rock boxes and photographs he took throughout his life. His 16mm film Aleph  is screened as well as posters, book covers and postcards.

Berman’s influence is far reaching, Peter Blake included his portrait on the cover of The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and he appeared, with a punning reference to his publication Semina, as a seed-sower in the film Easy Rider.

Wallace Berman (February 18, 1926-February 18, 1976 was an American West Coast visual /assemblage artist.

Wallace Berman was born in Staten Island, New York and moved with his family to Los Angeles, California in 1930. He was expelled from high school for gambling, and became involved in the world of jazz. He enrolled in and attended the Jepson Art School and Chouinard but did not complete studies there. Instead of pursuing a formal art 'career' he worked in a factory finishing antique furniture. This work gave him the opportunity to salvage reject materials and scraps which he used to make sculptures. He began a mail art publication called Semina The format was a letterpress text printed on an assemblage of colored paper, photos, and essentially found material. Contributors included John Altoon, Antonin Artaud, Charles Brittin, Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, Jean Cocteau, Allen Ginsberg, Marion Grogan, Walter Hopps, Larry Jordan, Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, David Meltzer, Stuart Perkoff, and John Weiners.

He exhibited pieces in the Ferus Gallery in 1957, became part of the beat communities in Los Angeles and in San Francisco, and started the Semina Art Gallery in Larkspur, California in 1960. He made his first and only film, Aleph from 1956-1966. Berman did not give the film a title, referring to it just as 'my film' or 'my movie' and never showed it to large audiences, preferring to screen it on his studio wall on a one-to-one basis. The title Aleph was given to the work by Berman's son, Tosh, after the artist's death.

He used verifax collages in his work, allowing for creation of serial and multiple images. From artist Ed Ruscha: "There were a lot of artists then that were doing serial imagery in that way, including Llyn Foulkes and Andy Warhol himself, of course, who really popularized it. I had done some things like that. It came about at a time where it had completely reached its time. It was inevitable, It's like a genealogy. I think it was about Wally — and even Andy of course, who came out of the commercial world — seeing not paintings in museums but more popular imagery." This development in the art world seems directly related to the growth of mass production, consumption, and mass disposal that the US embraced in the 1950s.

He was killed in an automoble crash with a drunk driver in Topanga Canyon in 1976.

Wallace Berman, Copyright the artist.

Wallace Berman, Untitled, Verifax collage, 1967.

Wallace Berman, Loveweed, 1959.

Wallace Berman, Untitled (4.10.9.8), (c. 1965), Stone,metal chain, and paint on wood base with brass plate, 5 x 7-3/4 x 8".

Wallace Berman, Untitled (Four Hands with Radios), (CA. 1965), Verifax collage and synthetic polymer with prestype on paperboard, 12-1/2 X 13-1/2".

Wallace Berman, Landlady, 1961.

Wallace Berman and various contributors, Semina (editions 1-9), 1955-64, Mixed media limited edition artist’s publication, , dimensions variable, Special Collections and Archives, Utah State University Library, Gift of the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation.