After a thorough restoration that took place over several months, Edward Kienholz “The Beanery” is back on view at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
It looks phenomenal and just as it did during its 1965 premiere, when it exhibited for three days directly outside of the original bar “Barney’s Beanery” on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.
The Beanery by Edward Kienholz
Basing this replica off the Original Beanery on Santa Monica Boulevard in LA, Kienholz took six months to recreate his favorite local bar in lifesize, down to the exact contents and placement of bottles, books, and signs. The figures that populate Ed’s Beanery represent his real life associates, their faces replaced with clocks and all stopped on 10:10, indicating that time has stopped for all of them. Only the barman, modeled after the proprietor, Barney, keeps his original human visage. Now showing at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
(photos by Ed Jansen)