PHILADELPHIA WIREMAN | UNTITLED

The wire sculptures now attributed to the Philadelphia Wireman were originally overlooked as trash in the late 1970s, but have since developed a cult following. The group of roughly 1,200 sculptures are comprised of tightly wound “nests” of heavy gauge wire securing a myriad of everyday objects, including straws, pencils, glass shards, scrap metal, food packaging, nails and toys. During a time when folk and self-taught art were only beginning to attract attention, champions of Junk Art and industrial assemblage like Allan Stone elevated the interpretation of these works as a contemporary strain of Neo-Primitivism, with influences from ritualistic objects of antiquity, Native American medicine bottles, African memory jugs or fetish objects, and even early John Chamberlain sculpture. The works of the Philadelphia Wireman have been exhibited at many prominent institutions, including the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; the Museum of African Art; the American Folk Art Museum; and Matthew Marks Gallery, New York. Notable collections include the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Akron Art Museum, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Philadelphia.