The Beanery

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Interior view of The Beanery

The Beanery is a life-size, walk-in artwork created in 1965 by the American artist Edward Kienholz; it has been referred to as his greatest work, and "one of the most memorable works of late 20th-century art".[1] It represents the interior of a Los Angeles bar, Barney's Beanery.

Modelled at two-thirds the size of the original Beanery,[2] it features the smells and sounds of the bar, and models of customers, all of whom have clocks for faces with the time set at 10:10. Only the model of Barney, the owner, has a real face. Kienholz is quoted as saying "The entire work symbolizes the switch from real time (symbolized by a newspaper) to the surrealist time inside the bar, where people waste time, kill time, forget time, and ignore time".[2]

First exhibited in the parking lot of the bar in October 1965,[3] it is now in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.[4] It was restored in 2012.[5]

References[edit]

  1. ^ The National Gallery takes on Tate Modern with Ed Kienholz | Art and design | The Guardian
  2. ^ a b Cultuurwijs – Een nagemaakte kroeg
  3. ^ Pincus, Robert L. (1990). On a scale that competes with the world : the art of Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienholz. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-06730-1.
  4. ^ The Beanery, Edward Kienholz
  5. ^ Stedelijk Museum restaureert 'The Beanery' van Kienholz - Kunstbeeld