Roxys

An old juke box, magazines, empty beer bottles and cigarette packets, a soldier’s uniform, female silhouettes showing traces of violence... The installation Roxys, with its sordid and disturbing decor, presents a life-size version of a 1940s Las Vegas brothel. Using a crude, kitsch language, Edward Kienholz confronts the viewer with loneliness, the obsession with sex, and the violence of racial and social discrimination in the contemporary western world.

From the 1950s, the American artist immersed the viewer in installations populated by furniture, objects, lights and disturbing mannequins. Kienholz’s work is composed of assemblages and large-scale installations that he calls tableaux: complex structures forming real environments that often paint a dark, repulsive and grotesque picture of our societies.

Part of the Pinault Collection, Roxys by Edward Kienholz was first shown at the "Eloge du Doute" (“In Praise of Doubt”) exhibition at the Punta della Dogana (2011-2013).