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Wallace Berman and Robert Heinecken, together at last

By Jon Lapointe

Speaking in Tongues: The Art of Wallace Berman and Robert Heinecken brings two seminal yet under-studied Los Angeles artists into close conversation with one another for the first time. Never before has their artwork been shown together in a tightly focused two-person exhibition. Organized by the curatorial team of Claudia Bohn-Spector and Sam Mellon, with supporting research by Carolyn Peter, this exhibition examines how these two artists bridged modernist and emerging post-modernist trends by ushering in the use of photography as a key element of contemporary avant-garde art. Focusing on language and the creation of new visual codes, as well as on the little-known friendship between the Berman and Heinecken, their works are explored within the unique cultural milieu of 1960s and 1970s Southern California, as it fueled and amplified each artist's highly original creative approach to making images. 

An illustrated catalogue, designed by Lorraine Wild of Green Dragon Studio and featuring essays by the curatorial team members and an introduction by Colin Westerbeck, will accompany the exhibition. After closing at the Armory Center, Speaking in Tongues: The Art of Wallace Berman and Robert Heinecken will travel to the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson. 

"We are very excited by the opportunity to show these artists together for the very first time," says curator Sam Mellon. "Very few people are aware that Berman and Heinecken even knew each other, let alone that they shared a creative outlook that was highly influential for future generations." Through an interdisciplinary display of original art works and ephemera, the exhibition captures the spirit of irreverence and innovation that permeated this important era in Southern California art. Notes curator Claudia Bohn-Spector: "Our exhibitions hopes to show that Berman and Heinecken were transitional figures, who took as their point of departure the art of the historical avant-garde and updated its subjects, techniques, and irreverent stance for contemporary use. Their friendship adds a new chapter to the story of how post-modernism arrived in Southern California." 

Wallace Berman (1926-1976) was born in Staten Island, NY and came to Los Angeles with his parents when he was four years old. In 1955 he founded the small but influential mail art publication Semina - a brilliant, loose-leaf compilation of the most advanced artists and poets of his time, including William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jess (Collins) to name a few. Today, Berman is best known for his Verifax collages, softly sepia-colored works created with a forerunner of the photocopy machine. Influenced by surrealism, assemblage, and contemporary artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, and Andy Warhol, Berman produced multi-layered works that combined the picture of a hand-held transistor radio with images culled from newspapers and popular magazines.