In the ‘60s, Ed Kienholz created a series titled “Concept Tableaux.” The work consisted of ten placards with corresponding “contracts” devised and signed by the artist detailing concepts for life-size tableaux that Kienholz would realize upon payment. One of which, “The American Trip,” was described by Kienholz as a collaboration between “Jean Tinguely, America and me,” that would manifest itself through discoveries made while traveling by car through America.

 The American Trip 1966

This tableau will be a collaboration between Jean Tinguely, America and me.

On a duck hunting trip last Fall, Lyn and I saw the country anew through Tinguely’s European eyes, particularly the wast. (Cotton fields with two or three generations of farm machinery rusting in the corner. A still-turning windmill endlessly plunging its piston down a dry well – “oh, she is beautiful, you like, no?”)

So, we decided to do a piece together. Starting from Los Angeles, Jean and I will drive by car until we are both compelled by a thing, a place, a situation, etc., to do something. I don’t know what it will be, where it will be, what it will cost, whether it will be animal, vegetable or mineral, or even bigger than a bread box. It might be alive of explosive.

See this work and more by Kienholz in the exhibition “Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959-1971” on view LACMA through September 10, 2017.