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Sometimes the only way to high art is through deep pockets.
Perhaps this occurred to Andy Warhol when BMW asked him to paint its M1 Group 4 race car in 1977. Warhol, already a superstar, was constantly fascinated with the melding of the commercial and the artistic. BMW was happily molding America as its largest export market.
In the past 40 years, there have been just 17 BMW Art Cars, on average one every three years. Out of all of its Art Cars, this M1 -- already nearly priceless as an automobile, let alone one breathed upon by the most recognizable name in modern art -- is BMW's most expensive and valuable. Recently, it was shown for just two days at Paris Photo LA at Paramount Studios, the prestigious art festival's first foray outside France.
It was there that we spoke with Thomas Girst, whose official title is "Head of Cultural Engagement" for BMW Group. He earned a PhD in Art History from Hamburg University and studied at NYU, where he focused on the conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp. At BMW, he acts as the curator of its collection of Art Cars. Girst readily admitted that the reason BMW's cultural department exists -- the reason he is able to stay employed -- is purely to further the aims of BMW: "It would be negligent to say that we're doing this for philanthropic or altruistic reasons, it's really about the image, the reputation, the visibility of the brand, as well as, really, being a good corporate citizen.
"Because the way companies are being looked at from the outside now doesn't really have to do with the core business, but what do they give back to society? So, culture is one of these things."
There's an air of validity in such honesty. Girst never was a car guy, but he slowly became one: After watching the engineers and designers in Munich collaborate on BMWs, he came to understand why artists in the early 1900s fell in love with the automobile. A great, tremendous statue, "our sculpture of the 20th century," according to the Futurist Manifesto of 1909, a statement extolling a new artistic philosophy. It was the world's splendor "enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed --" one of the first public love letters to the automobile. Certainly the famed BMW designer Chris Bangle thought so, drawing his inspiration from the Manifesto and citing automobiles as "mobile works of art." One can only help but wonder the discussions Bangle and Girst might have had in the BMW staff-room cafeteria.
Warhol also dabbled in automotive experimentation. His fascination with Pop Art and seemingly innocuous objects expressed itself in Campbell's Soup and Elvis Presley, but he also touched upon cars; much like his work Eight Elvises, he created images of Pontiacs, Cadillacs, Buicks. All of these were created in the early 1960s, just when he was starting to lay the groundwork of his legendary Factory. "The reason I'm painting this way," he said in 1963, "is that I want to be a machine, and I feel that whatever I do and do machine-like is what I want to do … everybody should be a machine."
It's ironic that Warhol himself laid paint on the M1, explained Girst, as his Factory was partially about detaching the artist from the work. The traditional artist was dead, he theorized; painting by hand was a relic, and art could be made on an assembly line.
But then this was a car, a product reproduced perfectly on an actual assembly line. Warhol, painting it by hand and by himself, stood in stark contrast to his work at the Factory. Nick Perry writes in Hyperreality and Global Culture, "confronted with so consummate a work of mechanical reproduction, both Warhol's artistic practice and his verbal response were tantamount to confirming the irrelevance of the traditionally modern conception of the artist … Warhol observed that 'I adore the car, it's much better than a work of art.' "
Prior artists had painted a scale model of the car, then had their artwork laboriously transferred to the full-size model. But Warhol insisted on painting the car himself, dipping his fingers into the paint, daubing it on with a foam brush, smelling its intoxicating fumes, feeling the bodywork with his own hands. His signature is on the car, signed with his finger right by the exhaust.
Warhol needed just 24 minutes to paint the car, in a shop outside of Munich. By the time the television crews had rolled in, he was finished. "Should I paint another car?" he asked, pointing at a brand-new BMW, one that was belonged to the man who owned the paint shop.
"Over my dead body," the owner replied.
"He hates me when I tell that story," said Girst, "because he's still very embarrassed about that -- that he didn't let Andy Warhol paint his car, and turn it into an artwork."
Warhol's paint gleams in the spotlights, its hues contrasting sharply like a cartographer's first draft; streaks of different hues the width of a finger scatter across the solid patches like creased and crumpled paper. "I tried to portray a sense of speed," said Warhol. "When a car is going really fast all the lines and colors become a blur."
Warhol painted some additional body panels in those 24 minutes -- spare bumpers and side moldings, not as souvenirs but for a very specific purpose. Two years later, in 1979, the car entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Manfred Winkelhock, Marcel Mignot and Hervé Poulain driving.
We have Hervé Poulain to thank for this intersection of avant-garde -- sometimes as bizarre as encasing the corporate product in a trellis of ice -- and corporate governance. Poulain loved contemporary art as much as he loved racing; he was already a successful art collector an auctioneer. In 1975, he had approached BMW motorsports manager and father of the M1 Jochen Neerpasch with an unusual proposition: What if they raced a BMW that was painted by a great artist? Neerpasch, it turned out, was just as crazy on the idea as Poulain. In 1975, the sculptor Alexander Calder painted the first BMW Art Car -- the 3.0 CSL, known affectionately as the "Batmobile." Calder was already a sculptor, the man who invented the mobile, in fact -- and what was the BMW if not a kinetic sculpture of another kind?
Poulain personally drove Calder's Batmobile in Le Mans that year, along with Jean Guichet and Sam Posey, the latter a legend in himself. The car suffered driveshaft issues and was retired early, and was never raced again. Calder died a year later, in 1976; the BMW was his last work.
Warhol's M1 was more successful. With Poulain, Winkelhock and Mignot behind the wheel, the car successfully completed 288 laps at Sarthe -- coming in 6th overall, and 2nd in its class. During the course of the race it made contact numerous times, which is when Warhol's spare bumpers came in handy. (Primered bodywork on the M1 itself would be as a mole on the Mona Lisa.) Next to Roy Lichenstein's Group 5 320i. It finished first in its class, also driven by Poulain -- this was the most successful Art Car to date.
There was something special about the first four Art Cars: They were based exclusively on race cars raced at the grueling endurance level, and always after they were painted. Priceless works on parade in the quickest way possible, they captured the public's imagination before the public would bicker loudly about what truly constituted art. They fueled a discussion kicked off by Girst's beloved Duchamp.
Poulain continued to be a successful art auctioneer and race-car driver, penning five books on the intersection of the two. Neerpasch went on to manage Sauber-Mercedes during its Le Mans conquests, where he discovered a young, obscure upstart by the name of Michael Schumacher.
That brings us neatly to today. When the Warhol M1 was brought to Hockenheim in 2009 to celebrate Thirty Years of the BMW M1, artist and Art Car alumnus Frank Stella drove the M1 in an homage race. Girst was aghast. "I said, 'look, we shouldn't drive that car because it's worth so much and it's such a great artwork. I'm going to tie myself to the car like how Greenpeace ties itself to trees.' "
But the cars belong on a racetrack, after all, something that Girst eventually acknowledged. Still, what's the value of Warhol's M1? We asked Girst. "Well," he laughed, "we would ask you to estimate that."
The car still runs, its mighty 470-hp M88 inline-six intact, but there are ignition problems and the car hasn't been fired up since that 2009 outing. Not to say that it's not busy: Inquiries for Art Cars come worldwide. It is shipped from museum to museum depending on which curator organizes an artist's retrospective -- no dealership displays here, Girst stressed.
Maybe that ignition remains broken for a reason. "Can you imagine someone driving off with it?" Girst smiled. "It would be the greatest art heist of the century."
[Text from Autoweek]
autoweek.com/article/car-life/close-andy-warhols-bmw-m1-a...
This Lego miniland-scale BMW M1 Procar Racer - Art Car #4 (1979 - And Warhol), has been created for Flickr LUGNuts' 90th Build Challenge, - "Fools Rush In!", -
to the subtheme - "Art Car 2015!". The 90th build challenge presenting 13 different subthemes to choose to build to.
One of my new works for "FOUR" at Corey Helford Gallery in LA on view from Feb 14th-March 7
“Flowering Free” 11”x16”, Oils over Mixed Media on Lasercut Panel, © Redd Walitzki
'Boy' (2000) by Ron Mueck (wikipedia)
at ARoS, the Århus Kunstmuseum / Museum of Modern Art (2003)
Aros Allé 2
8000 Århus C - DK
DENMARK
Schmidt Hammer Lassen architects
This 5 m big boy is quite stunning to see "in the flesh". Although I knew this sculpture from photographs (at the Venice Biennale) I did not quite anticipate how eerily realistic this sculpture would be even after seeing his "Big Man" at the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington DC some years ago.
It's clear that one might think that this boy is feeling scared and hiding from some kind of danger when seen from the front. But then you turn round and you can discern a faint Mona Lisa like smile on his lips hidden behind his arm.
Suddenly you understand that this boy probably crouched after doing some kind of mischief and that he is the perpetrator instead of the victim. I just imagined him having thrown a small stone, breaking a window and ducking to keep out of sight.
Strong stuff!
And above all Mueck does most of the work himself (with a little help from his wife for the clothing apparently an enthusiastic museum guard told me) unlike over-hyped artists as Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons.
Some interesting pictures of the sculpture in the making are provided by Gautier Deblonde on his site.
© picture by Mark Larmuseau
Welchen Einfluss üben Technisierung, Automatisierung und Digitalisierung auf unsere individuelle Lebenswirklichkeit aus? Dieser weitreichenden Frage geht Ed Atkins (*1982 in Oxford, GB) in seiner umfangreichen Präsentation im MMK 1 des MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main nach. Atkins gilt als Pionier und radikalster Vertreter einer jungen Künstlergeneration, die die fundamentalen Veränderungen der Bild- und Selbstwahrnehmung des Menschen durch die rasante Entwicklung der digitalen Medien kritisch reflektiert. In seinen filmischen, digital generierten Werken erschafft er eine künstliche und zugleich hyperreale Bildwelt, die in ihrer Ambivalenz von perfekter Simulation und scheinbar technischer Unzulänglichkeit zutiefst verstörend wirkt. „Das Werk von Ed Atkins trifft auf technisch brillante und zugleich perfide Weise den wesentlichen und zugleich wunden Punkt unserer postdigitalen Gegenwart. Wie kein anderer Künstler seiner Generation erfasst er die Problematik unseres durch die digitalen Medien veränderten Selbstbewusstseins, das durch die Illusion von Grenzenlosigkeit einerseits und den Verlust von Authentizität andererseits geprägt ist. In ihrer visuellen und akustischen Intensität ziehen seine digital erzeugten High-Definition Bildwelten den Betrachter in ihren Bann und konfrontieren ihn mit existenziellen Zuständen wie Einsamkeit, Entfremdung und Vergänglichkeit.“, erläutert MMK Direktorin Prof. Dr. Susanne Gaensheimer. Das MMK präsentiert in der Ausstellung zwei filmische Installationen, die sich über mehrere Räume erstrecken. Für diese kreiert Atkins einen virtuellen Protagonisten – eine Art Alter Ego des Künstlers –, dessen Profil er kontinuierlich weiterentwickelt und der in künstlichen Welten tiefgreifende Krisen durchlebt. Jede Stimme, die zu hören ist, sowie sämtliche Texte stammen von Atkins selbst. Ebenso hat er alle seine Bildwelten mit den zur Verfügung stehenden digitalen Mitteln selbst generiert.
Die Ausstellung „Ed Atkins. Corpsing“ wird im Rahmen der Frankfurter Positionen – eine Initiative der BHF-BANK-Stiftung – gezeigt. „Die Ausstellung von Ed Atkins integriert sich hervorragend in unser diesjähriges Programm der Frankfurter Positionen, das dem Thema ‚Ich Reloaded – Das Subjekt im digitalen Zeitalter’ gewidmet ist. Hier steht veranstaltungsübergreifend die Frage im Mittelpunkt, inwiefern sich die Definition und Konstruktion des Selbstbildes im digitalen Zeitalter verändert.“, sagt Stefan Mumme, Geschäftsführer der BHF-BANK-Stiftung. Quelle: Pressemitteilung MMK
For strobist: flash sb910 on a stand pointing at the ceiling at the left of camera. Triggerd by cls. In camera flashsettings on M 1/2 power
30th November 2013 - 30th March 2014
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery is the only UK venue to display this first and largest European retrospective. It showcases the key photorealist artists from the 1960s to the present day.
30th November 2013 - 30th March 2014
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery is the only UK venue to display this first and largest European retrospective. It showcases the key photorealist artists from the 1960s to the present day.
Imagining Al Stewarts 1976 hit
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress, running like a watercolor in the rain
30th November 2013 - 30th March 2014
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery is the only UK venue to display this first and largest European retrospective. It showcases the key photorealist artists from the 1960s to the present day.
With a glimpse of its own reflection the Skywhale becomes self aware.
Patricia Piccinini has designed an artwork in the form of a hot air balloon. With it moored to the ground, you can view Skywhale as a sculpture. Or it can take to the skies like any hot air balloon.
Exhibition Tjalf Sparnaay at Museum de Fundatie Zwolle NL.
Since 1987, he has been working on his imposing oeuvre, constantly seeking new images that have never been painted before. What he calls Megarealism is part of the contemporary global art movement of Hyperrealism, and Sparnaay is now considered one of the most important painters working in that style.
Fried eggs, French fries, sandwiches and ketchup bottles, Barbie dolls, marbles and autumn leaves. Artist Tjalf Sparnaay visualizes these trivial subjects and inflates them to enormous formats, an assault on the senses. His paintings hit the retina like bolts of lightning in a clear blue sky. No other painter confronts us quite so clearly with ordinary objects that we hold dear.
Tjalf Sparnaay not only documents reality but also intensifies this by blowing up everyday objects to mega-proportions. This gives him the opportunity to explore every detail very closely and to dissect it layer by layer in order to arrive at the core of the theme. ‘My paintings,’ remarks Sparnaay, ‘are intended to enable the viewer to experience reality once again, to rediscover the essence of the object that has become so common. I wish to reduce it to the DNA of the universal structure in all its beauty. I call it ‘the beauty of the everyday’. The way in which Sparnaay approaches his work refers directly to the seventeenth century. He resembles Vermeer in his lucid use of colour and eye for detail and refinement, while the lighting in his paintings recalls the play of light and shadow in the work of Rembrandt. Sparnaay elaborates on the rich seventeenth-century Dutch tradition of the still life, but does so on an individual and modern manner. He is constantly seeking new images that have never been painted. And he finds them in his own environment: ‘By using trivial and everyday objects, I enable reality to flow from my brush once more. My intention is to give these objects a soul and a renewed presence.’
Sparnaay’s work is spread out over collections worldwide and is regularly exhibited in cities such as New York and London.
A la maison régionale de l'architecture des Pays de la Loire (île de Nantes), Alain Séchas propose une installation autour d'une oeuvre de Duane Hanson "Flea Market Lady" datant de 1990, dans le cadre de la manifestation "Sans cimaise et sans pantalon".
"Sans cimaise et sans pantalon" est une exposition d’œuvres du musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes dans divers lieux de la ville sur proposition de l'artiste plasticien Alain Séchas, auquel les organisateurs ont donné carte blanche.
L'exposition s'inscrit dans "le Voyage à Nantes" (15 juin-19 août 2012), une opération promotionnelle du territoire par l'art contemporain dirigée par le très créatif Jean Blaise et qui succède à la biennale Estuaire dont 2012 est la dernière édition.
Site du "Voyage à Nantes"
www.levoyageanantes.fr/fr/le-parcours/maison-regionale-da...
L’œuvre hyper-réaliste de Duane Hanson " La Dame du marché aux puces", est placée au milieu de la salle d'exposition de la maison régionale de l'architecture des Pays de la Loire avec au mur, derrière elle, un ensemble d’œuvres de grands noms de la peinture accrochées sans cohérence sur un fond blanc.
L'effet de marché aux puces est réussi, les œuvres du musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes se détruisent mutuellement et la lumière violente de la salle écrase tout. L'accrochage est un exemple de ce qu'il ne faut pas faire dans une exposition mais Alain Séchas l'a voulu ainsi malgré la qualité intrinsèque des œuvres exposées.
L'installation de l'artiste-commissaire apparaît comme une œuvre en soi, une sorte de "sampling" visuel à partir des tableaux d'autres artistes et non des moindres.
Ce parti-pris de dévalorisation d’œuvres d'artistes reconnus a été accepté par le directeur du musée des Beaux-Arts. L'installation interroge les visiteurs sur le statut d'une œuvre d'art, sur ce qui la rend digne d'être exposée dans un musée, sur l'importance de l'environnement dans un espace d'exposition, sur le respect qu'il est nécessaire de lui porter.
Dans cette exposition, Alain Séchas a largement dépassé son rôle de commissaire pour imposer sa propre vision décalée, contestataire et ludique de l'art. On ne s'en plaint pas mais on doit rester conscient du tournant qui a été pris. On se prend quand même à espérer l'ouverture prochaine du musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes pour revoir ces mêmes œuvres dans d'autres conditions>/B>
3x WLX1600 1 ABR800 (w/ umbrella)
Triggered with Pocket Wizards
Sekonic 758DR
Honda EU2000i
-My friend Stu
L'artiste néerlandais a remplacé les statues allégoriques de la fontaine de la place Royale par des sculptures hyperréalistes représentant quatorze Nantais.
Latest personal series, shot a while back. Exploring a vehicle in segments and finding interesting shapes. Finding a balance between hyperreal and classy.
Lived in. Keith More hyperrealist pencil drawing of a portrait by the photographer Katherine Whipple. A3 size. Note: I could have gone in and softened things up a little and worked extra detail into the hands to create something more realistic, but I like the abstract vibe of an imposable F stop and some artistic freedom, so I stopped when I liked what I was seeing. Hope you like it too! I used H, B, 2B, 4B & 8B Faber Castell pencils, Staedtler Mars lumnograph 8B, Faber Castell putty eraser, Tombow mono mini eraser, Jakar electronic eraser, S,M,L blending stumps. The paper is Hahnemuhle 190gm Skizzenblock.
The Intel Sodaville chip. This was shot using my 5D, but the photos were only used as reference for positioning. The actual image is 100% Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. The exception is the coin. I shot that, edited it a bit in Photoshop, then inserted it and added the reflection.