John Chamberlain was a quintessentially American artist, channelling the innovative power of the post-war years into a relentlessly inventive practice spanning six decades. For Hauser & Wirth's first Swiss exhibition of the artist's work, John Chamberlain will present sculptures from 2009 that represent a unique connection to Switzerland.The twisted, crushed, and forged metal comprising the works on view were sourced from a field of reclaimed automobiles in Kaufdorf, Bern. Described as an auto-graveyard, the empty shells of vintage cars were taken over by the forest and undergrowth, left to the unsparing will of nature for almost 80 years until Chamberlain repurposed them into astonishing works of art.

Chamberlain first achieved renown for his sculptures constructed from automobile parts. Made in the late 1950s through 1960s, these were ground-breaking works that effectively transformed the gestural energy of abstract expressionist painting into three dimensions. Beginning in the 1970s, Chamberlain began to experiment with thee xpressive potential of an array of other found materials such as foam, Plexiglas, aluminium foil and mineral coatedr esin. These explorations often informed his work with automobile metal, which he returned to continually throughout his long practice.

Press release courtesy Hauser & Wirth.