ART CITIES:N.York-Shrines to Speed, Part I
From 1908, when the Ford Model T went into production, the impact which automobiles have had on the American landscape has been deep and absolute. Cars prompted the development of an expansive highway system which reached the far corners of the country and fueled the formation of an entire tourism industry based upon family road trips. Suburbs were also a result of car ownership, as those who had cars could commute to urban centers for work without having to live in one. (Part II)
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Leila Heller Gallery Archive
The Exhibition “Shrines to Speed: Art and the Automobile, From the Post-war to the Post-modern”, brings together 60 works which span several Art Movements and decades, and which represent over 40 different artists to explore the American relationship with the automobile. Some artists focus on the dignity and pleasure with which Americans own cars, others look at the many dangerous consequences of driving too fast. The exhibition is much more an exploration of American car culture and its representation in art than an attempt to assert an outright statement about this culture. This approach is a refreshing, commendable one, for it is mark of a good curator who allows art to speak for itself. In the exhibition this reality is evoked by Andy Warhol’s “Car Crash” that hangs alongside black and white photographs of young men proudly posing with their cars in William Gedney’s series “Kentucky”. Sylvie Fleury has cut an entire car down the middle and painted it a shimmering, peachy hue in “Skin Crime 6”, while Ron Arad hangs a completely flattened blue coupe up on the gallery wall for his piece “Pressed Flower Petrol Blue”. Car culture is inextricably linked to the idea of the west, heading west, and the California sunset. The exhibition recognizes this ideological horizon with the important inclusion of Ed Ruscha’s rare publication “Every Building on Sunset Strip”. This exhibition also includes a new work from the Bruce High Quality Foundation, which exploits the cultural importance of cinema to the mythos of car culture as the brightly hued bumper of a New York City taxi, equipped with a motion sensing device, which interrupts the viewers experience, delivering the soundtrack of the movie Taxi itself as the spectator approaches. Artist Included in the exhibition: Ron Arad, Arman, Daniel Arsham, John Baldessari, Jean Michel Basquiat, Robert Bechtle, Bruce High Quality Foundation, John Chamberlain, Bruce Davidson. Wim Delvoye, Richard Diebenkorn, William Eggelston, Richard Estes, Nick Farhi, Louis Faurer, Sylvie Fleury, John Aaron Frank, William Gedney, Dennis Hopper, William Klein, Jeff Koons, Jacques Henri Latrigue, Arthur Leipzig, Nate Lowman, Jonathan Monk, Robert Olsen, Ruth Orkin, Kaz Oshiro, Michael Andrew Page, Raymond Pettibon, Jack Pierson, Richard Prince, Dana Powell, Rob Pruitt, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Salvatore Scarpitta, Blair Thurman, Robert Williams, Andy Warhol and Aaron Young
Info: Curators: Alexander Heller & Vivian Brodie, Leila Heller Gallery, 568 West 25th street, New York, Duration 5/5-9/7/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.leilahellergallery.com
