SPACES Honors Lyn Kienholz, Trustee Emerita

Close

William Clark, Junk Yard Robots

ShareAdd page to my spaces
About the Artist/Site

New Jersey car mechanic William Clark began building “robots” out of auto parts after his driver’s license was suspended in 1980. At first he created some small figures to stave off boredom, but after his license was restored, he realized he had lots of “visual ideas” he wanted to explore. Over the next 10 years, he would create dozens of robot musicians, greeters, marksmen, and junkyard dogs–some as large as 20 feet tall—and install them around his family’s auto repair shop in Newtonville, in the Pinelands region of New Jersey.

Clark soon gained the nickname “Robot Man,” an appellation he welcomed and had embroidered on his work clothes. Although a small junkyard abutted his repair shop, he often scoured other yards for car parts. Several junk dealers became patrons, returning Clark’s welded figures to the settings from which they originated. EL & M Auto Recycling in Hammonton, New Jersey, continues to display a large number of Clark’s brightly painted robots, which act as ushers for rows of goods.

~Holly Metz



SPACES Archive Holdings

1 folder: images

Map and site information

Not Exact Address
Buena, New Jersey, United States
Latitude/Longitude: 39.528045 / -74.944885

Discussion

We welcome visitors' comments about this site. If you have additional information you feel should be included, or have questions or comments, please share your thoughts with us here.

Leave Your Comment

The SPACES website allows you to save your favorite art environments and share them with your friends or colleagues. Create your own portfolio of your favorites from environments in the online collection.

Send them to your friends, post them on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter and tag #spacesarchives 

Look for this button on pages that can be saved:

Add Page to my spaces