The ''War Room'' (1967/68–2002), by
Wally Hedrick
Wally Bill Hedrick (1928 – December 17, 2003)Gerald D. Adams, San Francisco Chronicle, Wally Hedrick: Iconoclastic Painter, Sculptor, Wednesday, December 24, 200/ref> was a seminal American artist in the 1950s California counterculture,Peter ...
(1928–2003), consists of eight canvases approximately 5 feet wide and 11 feet tall, all painted a deep black. Hedrick referred to these canvases as "wounded veterans". These canvases are bolted together to create a freestanding cubic room that could be entered via a small door in one of the canvases, thus creating an architectural painting. The black painted surfaces of the canvases face inward and the backs of the canvases face outward.
The ''War Room'' is an “environmental” painting; the viewer enters a small enclosure of painted blackness. The viewer is left to consider the encompassing darkness and contemplate the vacuity that this space creates. Hedrick refused to ignore the war and instead created a work of cultural and political significance. After the Vietnam War ended he repainted these canvases black in protest of the Gulf War in 1992 and the Iraqi war in 2002.
During this time, Hedrick was accused of stealing paintings, including a canvas by
Clyfford Still, from the
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...
, where he was teaching, then either painting them black or painting his own iconoclastic pictures over them.
[Peter Selz and Susan Landauer, Art of Engagement: Visual Politics in California and Beyond, UC Press, 2006, pg.89. ]
The ''War Room'' is a significant item of Bay Area art history.
References
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External links
Estate of Wally Hedrick* Vernissage.tv
The Historical Box(featuring
Wally Hedrick
Wally Bill Hedrick (1928 – December 17, 2003)Gerald D. Adams, San Francisco Chronicle, Wally Hedrick: Iconoclastic Painter, Sculptor, Wednesday, December 24, 200/ref> was a seminal American artist in the 1950s California counterculture,Peter ...
's ''War Room'') curated by Mara McCarthy, Hauser & Wirth, Zürich, November 11, 2011
Conceptual art
1960 works