Press book (english) - Galerie Frank Elbaz

Curated by Sophie Dannenmüller (catalogue available)
Opening on Saturday, January 10th, 5-9pm
Tuesday-Saturday 11am-7pm
A legendary figure of the California Beat movement, Wallace Berman is generally remembered as unassuming,
mystical and exceptionally charismatic. According to Dennis Hopper, "he affected and influenced everybody
seriously involved in the arts in Los Angeles in the 50's. If there was a guru, he was it – the high priest, the holy
man, the rabbi." Walters Hopps recalled "his magical touch of wit" – a magical touch still operating on younger
generations who discover Berman's work today. For the first solo exhibition of the artist ever organized in France,
the Galerie Frank Elbaz presents a selection of grids and "shuffles" from his pioneering copy art works, the
.
Berman started using the Verifax photocopier around 1964. It remained his main artistic tool until his accidental
death in 1976. Given his fascination for the power of words, the name "Verifax", meaning something like "True
Facts", must have held a symbolic significance. It recalls for instance the titles of earlier works,
(1957) and (1952-57), featured at the Ferus Gallery in 1957 – a legendary show closed by the police
on grounds of pornography. With the Verifax, Berman was able to fuse several mediums that had long interested
him, i.e. photography, collage and printing. The two-step gelatin dye transfer process of the Verifax is very similar
to that of photography, although entirely automated. The original to be copied was placed on the Verifax glass
plate and photographed; a negative image of the original was produced and needed to be re-introduced in the
machine, before being discarded, to allow the final positive copy to be printed.
In the , Berman made extensive use of an image of a hand holding a transistor radio, taken from
an advertisement for a small 1963 Sony transistor, probably found by chance in a magazine. Berman covered the
text of the ad with white paint, retaining only the image, and then cut out the rectangular space of the speaker to
replace it with various other images, found in the press or in books. The artist worked directly on the Verifax plate,
without creating an actual pasted down composition beforehand. In other word, there is no "original" collage in
the ordinary sense: the of the ephemeral piece the original work of art. Berman experimented with
the process, varying the required dosage of activator baths, as well as the development and exposure times. He
also incorporated the negatives into finished works instead of disposing of them. Furthermore, the printed
photocopies were usually not simply left in the form they came out: chemicals applied on the still wet paper
produced degrees of highlights, shades of sepia, as well as spots and splashes that look like accidents. As a
result, exactly identical "copies" of any one "original" were never obtained.
After completing a series of single photocopies, actual collages were composed by gluing down on a board from
4 to 56 different "hands", side by side in a square grid pattern or overlapping in a "shuffle". This is in fact the only
time a real collage takes place, with visible joints between the fragments – this of course doesn't happen with
photocopying, which neutralizes all of the colors, paper qualities, layers and junctions. The so-called
(like today's digital art) are hardly collages in the sense of cutting and pasting materials to a surface, but
rather disparate visual elements blended by a quasi-magical operation. The visuals resulting from the automated
process, fortuitous incidents and controlled hands-on manipulations were many times removed from the images
placed in the Verifax at the beginning of this creative routine, in which artist, chance, and machine alternately took
the upper hand.
Sophie Dannenmüller
For more informations, please contact Daphné : +33 (0)1 48 87 50 04 / daphne@galeriefrankelbaz.com

Wallace Berman
Born in 1926 in Staten Island, NY, USA. Died in 1976 in Topanga, CA, USA.
Education
1944 Attended Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles, CA, USA
1944 Attended Jepson Art School, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Solo Exhibitions (selection)
2009 Verifax Collages, Galerie Frank Elbaz, Paris, France, curated by Sophie Dannenmüller (catalogue)
She – Works by Wallace Berman and Richard Prince, Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles,
CA, USA, curated by Kristine McKenna
2008 All is Personal: the Art of Wallace Berman, Camden Art Center, London, UK
2007 Wallace Berman, Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2005 Aleph - A Film by Wallace Berman, The Jewish Museum, New York, NY, USA
Wallace Berman, Patricia Faure Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2000 “Art Is Love Is God“, une introduction, 1957-1976, Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain,
Geneva, Switzerland
1997 Wallace Berman, L.A. Louver, Venice, CA, USA
1993 Sermons, Ravings and Reminiscences on the Influence of a Truly Seminal Artist - Wallace
Berman, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA, USA
Wallace Berman/Collages, Barry Whistler Gallery, Dallas, TX, USA
1992-93 Wallace Berman, Institute of Contemporary Art, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (book:
Support the Revolution)
1990 Wallace Berman, A Gesture Involving Verifax Collage, Photographs, Text and Sculpture,
Louver Gallery, New York, NY, USA
1988 Wallace Berman (1926-1976), A Retrospective, L.A. Louver, Venice, CA, USA
1982 Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, NY, USA
1979 L.A. Louver, Venice, CA, USA
1978 Wallace Berman, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA
Wallace Berman Retrospective, Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, CA, USA; traveled to Fort
Worth Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX; University Art Museum, Berkeley, CA; Seattle Art
Museum, Seattle, WA (catalogue)
1977 Wallace Berman, Timothea Stewart Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA
1974 Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, CA, USA
1973 One-day exhibition organized by Wallace Berman, Mermaid Tavern, Topanga, CA, USA
1968 Wallace Berman: Verifax Collages, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA,
USA
Wallace Berman: Verifax Collages, The Jewish Museum, New York, NY, USA
1967 Exhibition of Verifax Collages organized by Wallace Berman, Topanga Community House,
Topanga, CA, USA
1965 Studio exhibition of Verifax Collages organized by Wallace Berman, Los Angeles, CA, USA
1957 Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Group Exhibitions (selection)
2008 Traces du sacré, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany,
curated by Jean de Loisy (catalogue)
Looking for mushrooms: Beat Poets, Hippies, Funk and Minimal Art: Art and Counterculture
in San Francisco 1955-1968, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
Time & Place: Los Angeles 1957-1968, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, curated by
Lars Nittve with Lena Essling
2007 Semina Culture: Wallace Berman and his Circle, The Grey Art Gallery, New York University,
New York, NY, USA
Pioneers, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, CA, USA
2006 Los Angeles 1955-1985, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, curated by Catherine Grenier
(catalogue)
L.A. Object and David Hammons Body Prints, Tilton Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Semina Culture: Wallace Berman and his Circle, The University of California, Berkeley Art
Museum & Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA, USA; The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of
Art, Utah State University, Logan, UT; The Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University,
Wichita, KS
Radical Software - Art, Technology, and the Bay Area Underground, CCA Wattis Institute for
Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, CA, USA
Collection Histories/Collective Memories: California Modern, Orange County Museum of Art,
Newport Beach, CA, USA
2005 Semina Culture: Wallace Berman and his Circle, Santa Monica Museum, Santa Monica, CA,
USA
Assemblage and Collage in California in the 1960s, 871 Fine Arts Gallery, San Francisco,
CA, USA
Looking at Words, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, NY, USA
2004 Lost but Found: Assemblage, Collage and Sculpture, 1920-2002, Norton Simon Museum,
Pasadena, CA, USA
Subway Series - The New York Yankees and the American Dream, Bronx Museum of the
Arts (BxMA), Bronx, NY, USA
Evidence of Impact: Art and Photography 1963-1978, Whitney Museum of American Art,
New York, NY, USA
Collage, Bloomberg Space, London, UK
2003 Between Art and Life: From Joseph Cornell to Gabriel Orozco, Miami Art Museum, Miami, FL, USA
Some Assembly Required: Collage Culture in Postwar America, Everson Museum of Art,
Syracuse, NY, USA; Madison Art CEnter, Madison, WI; Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, FL
(catalogue)
2002 Ferus, Gagosian Gallery - 24th Street, New York, NY, USA (catalogue)
2001 The Importance of Being Earnest, Weingart Galleries & Mullin Sculpture Barn, Occidental
College, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2000 Made in California: Art, Image and Identity, 1900-2000, Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
Los Angeles, CA, USA (catalogue)
S.O.S.: Scenes of Sounds, inaugural exhibition at the Tang, Teaching Museum and Art
Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, USA
The New Frontier: Art and Television, 1960-1965, Austin Museum of Art, Austin, TX, curated
by John Alan Farmer (traveled - catalogue)
1999 Group Show, Nicole Klagsbrun, New York, NY, USA
Arranged Marriage, Roth Horowitz, New York, NY, USA (catalogue)
The American Century: Art and Culture, 1950-2000, Whitney Museum of American Art, New
York, NY, USA (catalogue)
Made in America, Contemporary Paintings and Sculpture from the Norton Simon Museum,
USA

Coming to Life: The Figure in American Art 1955-1965, Henry Art Gallery, University of
Washington, Seattle, WA, USA (catalogue)
Altered States, Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Wallace Berman, Kenneth Goldsmith, Al Ruppersberg, Gorney, Bravin & Lee, New York, NY,
USA
1998 World Artsist for Tibet, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA, USA
1997-99 Sunshine and Noir: Art in Los Angeles 1960-1997 organized by: Louisiana Museum of
Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark; traveled to: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg; Rivoli, Torino,
Italy; Armand Hammer Museum-UCLA, Los Angeles, CA (catalogue), curated by Lars Nittve
1996 Beat Culture and The New America 1950-1965, Whitney Museum of American Art, New
York, NY and M.H. deYoung Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA, USA (catalogue)
1996-98 It’s Only Rock and Roll: Rock and Roll Currents in Contemporary Art, Exhibition
Management, Traveling exhibition
1995 Neo-Dada: Redefining Art, 1958-1962, Scottsdale Center for the Arts, Scottsdale, AZ, USA,
organized by the American Federation of Arts (traveled – catalogue)
Pacific Dreams: Currents of Surrealism and Fantasy in California Art, The Oakland Museum
of California, Oakland, CA, USA, curated by Susan Ehrlich (catalogue)
...an accumulation of supple solids..., Littlejohn Contemporary, New York, NY, USA
1994 Worlds in a Box, City Art Centre, Edinburgh, UK; traveled to: Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield;
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich; Whitechapel Art
Gallery, London (catalogue)
1993 Collage, Brian Gross Fine Art, San Francisco, CA, USA
1992-94 Proof: Los Angeles Art and the Photograph, 1960-1980, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna
Beach, CA, USA; traveled to De Cordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA, USA;
Ansel Adams Center, San Francisco, CA, USA; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts,
Montgomery, AL, USA; Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, FL, USA; Des Moines Art Center,
Des Moines, IA, USA (catalogue)
1992 Sight/Vision: The Urban Milieu (Number III), Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA, USA
Poem Makers: Wallace Berman, George Herms, and Jess, L.A. Louver, Venice, CA, USA
(facsimile edition of Semina)
1991 Wallace Berman, Bruce Conner, Jay DeFeo, George Herms and Jess, Nicole Klagsbrun
Gallery, New York, NY, USA
1990 Crossing the Line: Word as Image, 1960-1990, Montgomery Gallery, Pomona College,
Claremont, CA, USA (catalogue)
1989-90 L.A. Pop in the Sixties, Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, CA, USA; traveled to
Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA; Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA;
Wadsworth Atheneum; Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix,
AZ (catalogue)
Forty Years of California Assemblage, Wight Art Gallery, University of California, Los
Angeles, CA, USA; traveled to Fresno Art Museum & Art Center, Fresno, CA; University of
Houston, Blaffer Gallery, Houston, TX; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE (catalogue)
1989 Collage/Assemblage: Nine Points of View, California State University Hayward, Hayward,
CA, USA; traveled to Richard Reynolds Gallery, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, USA
The Junk Aesthetic: Assemblage of the 1950's and early 1960's, Whitney Museum of
American Art, Fairfield County, Stamford, CT, USA; traveled to Whitney Museum of
American Art at the Equitable Center, New York, NY, USA (catalogue)
1988-89 Poetic Objects, San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX, USA; traveled to Boise Art
Museum, Boise, ID, USA; Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX, USA; Amarillo Art
Center, Amarillo, TX, USA (catalogue)
1988 Lost and Found in California: Four Decades of Assemblage Art, James Corcoran Gallery,
Shoshana Wayne Gallery and Pence Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, USA (catalogue)
Different Drummers, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, USA
(catalogue)

1987 Assemblage, Kent Fine Art Inc., New York, NY, USA (catalogue)
1986 American/European: Painting and Sculpture, L.A. Louver, Venice, CA, USA
1985 Past Presence/Contemporary Sources, College of Notre Dame, Belmont, CA, USA
(catalogue)
Twentieth Century: The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Collection, San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, USA
1983 Sight/Vision/The Urban Milieu, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA, USA
1982 The Peace Show, Santa Monica College Art Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, USA
The Americans: The Collage, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX, USA (catalogue)
1981 California: A Sense of Individualism, L. A. Louver, Venice, CA, USA
Art in Los Angeles: Seventeen Artists in the Sixties, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los
Angeles, CA, USA; traveled to San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX (catalogue)
Southern California Artists: 1940-1980, Laguna Beach Museum of Art, Laguna, CA, USA
1979-80 Electroworks, International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, Rochester,
NY, USA
1976 Painting and Sculpture in California: The Modern Era, San Francisco Museum of Modern
Art, San Francisco, CA, USA, curated by Walter Hopps and Henry Hopkins; traveled to
National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (catalogue)
The Last Time I Saw Ferus, 1957-1966, Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, CA,
USA (catalogue)
1975 Art as a Muscular Principle, John and Norah Warbeke Gallery, Mount Holyoke College,
South Hadley, MA, USA (catalogue)
Environment and the New Art 1960-1975, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
Collage and Assemblage, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA
1974 Poets of the Cities/New York and San Francisco 1950-1965, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts,
Dallas, TX, USA (travele - catalogue)
1969 Pop Art Redefined, Hayward Gallery, London, UK
West Coast 1945-1969, Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, CA, USA; traveled to City Art
Museum of St. Louis, MO; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada; Fort Worth Art Center
Museum, Fort Worth, TX, USA (catalogue)
1968 Assemblage in California, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA, curated by John Coplans
(catalogue)
1966 Los Angeles Now, Robert Fraser Gallery, London, UK (catalogue)
Public collections
France
Portugal
Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Centre Pompidou, Paris
Berardo Museum - Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art, Lisbon
Switzerland Mamco - musée d´art moderne et contemporain, Geneva
Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur
USA
Museum Of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, East Logan, UT
Los Angeles County Museum of Art - LACMA, Los Angeles, CA
MOCA Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
The Jewish Museum of New York, New York, NY
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena, CA
Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA
The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Installation view of the exhibition Verifax Collages, curated by Sophie Dannenmüller, galerie frank elbaz,
Paris, 2009

Installation view of the exhibition Verifax Collages, curated by Sophie Dannenmüller, galerie frank elbaz,
Paris, 2009

Installation view of the exhibition Verifax Collages, curated by Sophie Dannenmüller, galerie frank elbaz,
Paris, 2009

Installation view of the exhibition Verifax Collages, curated by Sophie Dannenmüller, galerie frank elbaz,
Paris, 2009

Installation view of the exhibition Verifax Collages, curated by Sophie Dannenmüller, galerie frank elbaz,
Paris, 2009

Wallace Berman
Untitled (Single piece #25)
1964-1976
Negative Verifax copy
15,2 x 16,5 cm / 6 x 6 1/2 inches
Unique

Wallace Berman
Untitled (Single piece #44)
1964-1976
Negative Verifax copy
15,2 x 16,5 cm / 6 x 6 1/2 inches
Unique

Wallace Berman
Untitled (Single piece #32)
1964-1976
Negative Verifax copy
15,2 x 16,5 cm / 6 x 6 1/2 inches
Unique

Wallace Berman
Untitled (Single piece #113)
1964-1976
Positive Verifax copy
15,2 x 16,5 cm / 6 x 6 1/2 inches
Unique

Wallace Berman
Untitled (Al-Nebulae)
1970
Collage of 4 negative Verifax copies on panel
33 x 35,5 cm / 13 x 14 inches
Unique

Wallace Berman
Untitled (Al-Draped Figure)
1964-1976
Collage of 16 negative Verifax copies on panel
61 x 66 cm / 24 x 26 inches
Unique

Wallace Berman
Untitled
1975
Collage of 25 negative Verifax copies on panel
76,2 x 82,5 cm / 30 x 32 1/2 inches
Unique

Wallace Berman
Untitled (Shuffle)
1968
Collage of Verifax copies and acrylic paint on panel
33 x 35,5 cm / 13 x 14 inches
Unique

Wallace Berman
Untitled
1963
Offset vintage poster
39 x 28 cm / 15 1/2 x 11 inches

Wallace Berman
Untitled
1964
Offset vintage poster
55 x 58 cm / 21 1/2 x 23 inches

Wallace Berman
Untitled
1965
Offset vintage poster
53 x 43 cm / 21 x 17 inches

Wallace Berman
Untitled
1967
Offset vintage poster
66 x 58 cm / 26 x 23 inches
Ed. 268/285

Wallace Berman
Semina
1988
Edition of 300

By Judith Benamou-Huet

Soline Delos, “Beat Boy” in Elle, January 17th, 2009