Ed and Nancy Kienholz’s Bout Round Eleven is a largest work by the couple on view in our current exhibition Kienholz Televisions. Created in 1982, the tableau features two life-size figures: A man sits at his work table with tools spread out before him, while nearby a woman stands arms crossed, facing outward — neither acknowledging the other. While the figures seemingly lack any emotion, an enraged dog snarls through the screen of a television set between them. Pictured here are images of the work as it appears today, as well as archival photography of the piece in progress. See Ed and Nancy prepare the plaster mold of the male figure, and additional shots of Ed applying final coats of resin, a finishing touch often employed by the couple.

In the 1984 exhibition catalogue for Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienholz: Human Scale (SFMoMA), Lawrence Weschler recounts his first impression of the work: “For almost three decades now, Kienholz has been returning again and again, to the same few themes. The difficulty, the woe, that is in marriage: while I was up there in Hope, Nancy had shown me some photos of Bout Round Eleven, 1982, another recent piece. The desperate impasse of the couple in that tableau was a reworking of the same theme from The Middle Islands, 1972, and before that Vision of Sugar Plums, 1964.”

Kienholz Televisions is on view at L.A. Louver through April 2, 2016. 

IMAGES: (artwork) Edward & Nancy Kienholz, Bout Round Eleven, 1982, mixed media assemblage 90 x 97 x 92 in. (228.6 246.4 x 233.7 cm); (archival) Courtesy of Nancy Reddin Kienholz