Ed Kienholz’s “Illegal Operation” Comes to LA

Think of late installation artist Ed Kienholz's work as Bukowski-esque fare that Judy Chicago or Ghada Amer would balk at. That's not a bad thing at all in fact, because Kienholz is the genius behind "Back Seat Dodge '38," which depicts a drunken hook-up (or ironically enough, those hook-ups that we try to forget by choosing to imbibe further). And although the Los Angeles County Museum of Art got some flack for purchasing "Dodge," some years ago, they faced even larger odds until very recently when trying to add "The Illegal Operation" to the collection.

“Operation” is Kienholz’s depiction of a back-alley abortion—despite its antiquated appearance, the 40+-year-old work doesn’t seem dated. The piece features a shopping cart reconfigured into an operating table with a lamp towering overhead and a bedpan filled with rusty tools. The museum allegedly forked over $1 million for the piece. And after its current exhibition at Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, it comes to the LACMA in February of 2009.