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BRIDGHAMPTON MUSEUM UNVEILS

LARGE-SCALE FOIL WORK BY

AMERICAN ARTIST JOHN CHAMBERLAIN

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Chamberlain’s celebrated “BURNTPIANO,” from his foil series,

will be on public display at the Nathaniel Rogers House beginning May 23, 2026

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RSVP for the Opening

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The John Chamberlain Estate and the Bridgehampton Museum are proud to announce the outdoor installation of the late American artist John Chamberlain’s BURNTPIANO (Green) (2008) – a large-scale sculpture from the artist’s series of foil works – which will be on view from May 23, 2026 through the end of 2027. BURNTPIANO (Green) will be prominently displayed on the front lawn of the Bridgehampton Museum’s Nathaniel Rogers House located at 2539 Montauk Highway in the heart of the Hamptons.

The exhibition is made possible by filmmaker Lana Jokel, who organized the collaboration between the Bridgehampton Museum and the John Chamberlain Estate. Early in her film career, she made her first documentary on Andy Warhol. Warhol introduced Jokel to a vibrant community of artists in the Hamptons, which led her to capture intimate interviews with many of them in the 1990s, including her close friend John Chamberlain. Jokel and Chamberlain shared a deep friendship from the 1960s until his final days, and she remains a close friend of the estate.

“We are thrilled that Chamberlain’s monumental ‘BURNTPIANO (Green)’ will be displayed at the Bridgehampton Museum, not far from the Chamberlain Estate on Shelter Island, where the concept for this work was first created,” said Alexandra Fairweather, Director of the John Chamberlain Estate and the late artist’s stepdaughter. “His Shelter Island studio was a special place for him, and it’s also where we’ve found a home for his legacy. Like so many artists, the East End of Long Island was a formative place for Chamberlain, and we are honored to celebrate his life and his work with this prominent local installation.”

Chamberlain was an artist who refused to be defined by genre. Throughout a career spanning more than six decades, he continuously experimented with medium, material, and scale. By the 1970s, the artist began creating large, dynamic sculptures using heavy-gauge aluminum foil, which he shaped through physical actions like kicking, punching, and even driving his car into the works. In the late 1980s, Chamberlain began crafting a series of miniature sculptures from plain and colored aluminum foil. These small-scale works, characterized by their intricate creases and folds, showcased hisgrowing proficiency and delicate control over the material. Chamberlain was challenged in his attempts to enlarge these detailed miniatures to a monumental scale for many years, but by the 2000s, he was able to make them monumental in scale.

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The Bridgehampton Museum began as the Bridgehampton Historical Society in 1954. In the early aughts, the Nathaniel Rogers House was purchased by the Southampton Town Community Preservation fund, and the Bridgehampton Museum became its stewards. Following a restoration, the Nathaniel Rogers House was completed in 2020 and began holding fine art exhibitions in 2024 under the direction of Executive Director, Connor Flanagan and Timothy Malyk, Chief Curator and Collections Manager of the Museum. Today, the Museum’s exhibitions and programming are focused on the art, culture, and history of Bridgehampton and the East End of Long Island. The installation of BURNTPIANO (Green) at the Bridgehampton Museum recalls the origins of Chamberlain’s large-scale foil series, which began with the artist crafting similar small foil works at the kitchen table of his studio on Shelter Island.

Several exhibitions will be running concurrently with the installation of BURNTPIANO (Green), including a group show titled, Materials Speak (closing on May 23rd), What We Carry: Memory and Migration (May 30-July 4), followed by two exhibitions curated by Lana Jokel, Looking… (July 11-Aug 8), an exhibition of the works by Christophe Von Hohenberg, Rainer Andreessen, and Oscar Molina, and Time Revisited, a show featuring the work of local artists, Loren Dunlap and Brian O’Leary.

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“We are honored for the opportunity to present this monumental work by John Chamberlain. We are also extremely grateful to Lana Jokel, Alexandra Fairweather, and Prudence Fairweather for this opportunity,” says Malyk of the Chamberlain installation. “We are thrilled to exhibit a major sculpture by such a seminal, pioneering, and pivotal figure in Contemporary Art History with such strong direct ties to our local community. . It’s a true honor for the museum.”

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Artist John Chamberlain

Chamberlain’s legacy is marked by numerous solo exhibitions and accolades, including retrospectives at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. His impact extends globally, and today Chamberlain’s sculptures can be found in permanent collections worldwide at institutions such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, The Menil Collection in Houston, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Tate Modern in London, and the Kunstmuseum Winterthur in Switzerland.

John Chamberlain’s artistic journey reflects a lifelong commitment to authenticity and nonconformity; his enduring legacy redefined the essence of sculpture, left an indelible mark on art history, and continues to inspire future generations.

John Chamberlain (1927–2011) was a prolific artist, renowned for his innovative sculptures that defied convention. Throughout his lengthy career, he embodied and bridged the spirit of multiple artistic movements, channeling the expressive individualism of the American Postwar era and integrating elements of Abstract Expressionism, Process Art, and Minimalism to develop an oeuvre that is distinctly, and singularly, Chamberlain.

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John Chamberlain Estate

The John Chamberlain Estate, established in 2011, is dedicated to preserving the art, archives, and legacy of the celebrated artist John Chamberlain. Known for his relentless experimentation, Chamberlain pushed the boundaries of sculpture, leaving an indelible mark on postwar art and continuing to shape contemporary culture today. Through exhibitions, publications, and special projects, the Estate advances this legacy, with recent initiatives including the Assouline volume Living with Chamberlain, exploring the artist’s influence across art, design, and architecture, and the public exhibition Chamberlain Goes Outdoors at Rockefeller Center, New York. These efforts lead into the centennial of Chamberlain’s birth in 2027, which will be marked by a series of major exhibitions and programs celebrating his enduring impact.

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Bridgehampton Museum

The Bridgehampton Museum is dedicated to the collection, preservation, and interpretation of artifacts and documents that tell the story of Bridgehampton’s past and present via exhibitions, lectures, tours, demonstrations, festivals, and special events. It was first established in 1954 by a group of concerned local citizens focused on trying to preserve the history and culture specific to our special hamlet. Today, in partnership with the Town of Southampton, the Museum also serves as Stewards of the Nathanial Rogers House.