Tourists and surfers strolling down the Santa Monica pier in 1979 would have passed a mysterious awning advertising “The Natural Museum of Modern Art”. A nearby explanatory panel did little to clarify: “The Natural Museum of Modern Art project is part of an ongoing interest by the John Doe Co in natural objects and phenomena.”
Read the rest of this entry »Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles
Carl Cheng, Erosion Machine (detail), 1969, Plexiglas, metal racks and fittings, plastic, water pump, LED lights, black light, pebbles, 4 erosion rocks and wood base, 38 x 64 x 23 cm. All images courtesy: the artist and Cherry & Martin, Los Angeles
In 1967, the year he graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, Carl Cheng registered the trade name John Doe Co. and, soon after, began stamping it on his sculptures. Up to this point, much of Cheng’s work had a formal relationship to photography – he was taught by the influential artist-photographer Robert Heinecken, who was instrumental in widening the field – but, as John Doe Co., Cheng began producing objects that seem more like crackpot inventions than image-based sculptures. Read the rest of this entry »
Jonathan Griffin 