From Postcards to Plaster Casts: The Image of Lynching in Kienholz's Five Car Stud

Abstract

Five Car Stud by Edward Kienholz (1927–1994) was first exhibited in 1972 inside an inflated dome at Documenta 5, in Kassel, Germany. After its debut, a Japanese collector acquired the work and moved it to a storage facility in Sakura, Japan, where it slowly fell into disrepair. With Pacific Standard Time fast approaching, the piece was transported to the Kienholz studio in Hope, Idaho, where Nancy Reddin Kienholz and her team agreed to take on the restoration process.