"Headed west, we made a stop at L.A.Louver, with two concurrent shows. Put together in collaboration with former Los Angeles County Museum curator Maurice Tuchman, “Kienholz Before LACMA” is a collection of early works by Edward Kienholz, prior to the time when his controversial exhibit at the museum attracted the ire of L. A. County Supervisors and other local dignitaries, notably for the infamous “Back Seat Dodge,” in which a couple could be discerned in flagrante delicto in an already socially iconic situation, one in which a good number of young Americans were introduced to the early, fumbling, dreadfully sinful experience of sex. It’s an important show, recalling the always challenging, often confrontational, generally dark and brooding, though also strangely elegant early assemblage work of an artist whose place in art history is beyond question."