Artwork from Alan Neider

photo courtesy of Alan Neider

Alan Neider // Tree & Tar 3

1973-74

trees, broken glass, metal, rags

Please find some of older art. Tree & Glass. We moved to a very bad neighborhood around 1973-4 in Chicago. I found lots of broken glass, metal, rags etc. in the basement. As a reaction to the environment I made a good number of ugly and dangerous sculptures from the found material. This work was reviewed in Artforum around 75’ (?) While in Chicago I made several ‘Wrapped Chair’ pieces. Find 2 here. I constructed the chairs, made the beams, wrapped them with canvas and then stained the canvas with oil stain. Stain spilled onto the chairs. These works were actually dangerous since they were held together with rags soaked in tar. The Chicago neighborhood is now Very expensive and desirable.

At the same time I wrapped 5 supporting columns in downtown Chicago with about 2000 yards of stained canvas. I wanted to “soften” the look of these buildings. After spending about 4 years making horizontally oriented paintings, some being 20’ wide, using acrylics and applied with squeegees; I drastically changed everything. I started making ‘curtains’. Again, I spent about 4 years on the curtains. Find a B/W early curtain and a later one in color.