Wallace Berman was pivotal to the development of experimental art in California during the 1950s-70s. He is perhaps best known for works that he created using a Kodak Verifax photocopier, comprising grids of images that are virtually identical except for a few discrete, variable elements rendered by hand. Among the examples of Berman’s production held in the Sackner collection is a work on paper that displays the full diversity of techniques that the artist applied to create these variations, from drawing and watercolor to collage, frottage, and letraset. The image pertains to the Radio/Aether series (1967/1974), in which a hand holds a transmitter-radio that seems to emit or receive mass-media images, as well as esoteric messages represented as symbols drawn from the Kabbalah, a Jewish mystical tradition.
Identification
Title
Untitled
Production Date
ca. 1960
Object Number
2016.321
Credit Line
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, acquired from The Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Gift of Ruth and Marvin A. Sackner and the Sackner Family Partnership
Frottage, graphite, Letraset, photocopied fragment, seal, watercolor, and paper collage
Dimensions
7 7/8 x 10 1/2 inches
Visual Description
Untitled by Wallace Berman is a mixed media collage from 1960. It is made of frottage, graphite, letraset, photocopied fragments, seal, watercolor, and paper collage. It measures roughly eight inches tall by ten and a half inches wide. It is hung in portrait orientation, meaning its longest side runs parallel to the floor.Starting from the top left corner, there is an image of a helicopter from earlier in the development of aircraft. it appears to have been pasted from a news article and it hovers above black colored symbols drawn from the Kabbalah, a Jewish mystical tradition. Underneath the helicopter, there are two circles that resemble coins. Inside the coins there are figures of humans appearing to dance. The coin’s edges are smudged and colored in a brown/grey that resembles rust. In the center of the artwork is a transistor radio vertically tucked under the right wing of the helicopter which is held by a body-less right hand. Inside the radio, are the letters “AM” and “FM” with a series of numbers underneath to denote frequencies. To the right of the letters there is a grasshopper that is partially painted green. A letter “H” at the top right corner lays outside the structure of the radio as well as the symbols T9 below it that glow against the monochromatic composition in a bright crimson red. Surrounding the main objects in the composition are smudges of paint that create auras or shadows around the objects that rest on an otherwise white backdrop.
Wallace Berman
Wallace Berman — b. 1926, New York; d. 1976, Los Angeles Artist Page