"For Vaughan each crashed car set off a tremor of excitement, in the complex geometries of a dented fender, in the unexpected variations of crushed radiator grilles, in the grotesque overhang of an instrument panel forced on to a driver’s crotch as if in some calibrated act of machine fallatio. The intimate time and space of a single human being had been fossilised forever in this web of chromium knives and frosted glass”
The artistic homage to the novel by J. G. Ballard is a bizarre mixture of pieces from a diverse set of artists, including Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Lichtenstein and Warhol. What supposedly unites the former is their collective representation of one of the key messages Ballard conveys in his general body of work, and particularly effectively in Crash: “sex + technology = the future”. The juxtaposition of erotic imagery and art depicting the built environment certainly makes for an extraordinary experience. I’ll highlight my favourite works of art from the exhibition, and my personal understanding of each of them.
Wayward Nurse is one of Richard Prince's nurse paintings, inspired by the covers and titles of pulp romance novels. The artist scanned the covers of actual books, transferred the scans to canvases, and added his own personal touches with acrylic paint. With a few brush strokes here and there, Prince has transformed the covers by giving a mysterious quality to them. The nurse paintings have become incredibly popular; Sonic Youth was even inspired by Prince's work to name a song on their album Sonic Nurse after his painting Dude Ranch Nurse.
Cyprien Gaillard's View Over Sighthill Cemetery seems to contrast life and death; the cemetery in the forefront serves as a constant reminder of human loss to the inhabitants of the post-war block of flats. Conversely, the block symbolises rebirth; the land that contains the buried remains of human beings now also provides for the living, by serving as the base for their home.
Carsten Holler only created Giant Triple Mushroom this year. The sculpture comprises of three different types of mushroom that have 'crashed' into one another. One half is based on the fly-agaric mushroom, which is poisonous and psychoactive, while the remaining half is based on two mushrooms that are comparatively harmless. I find it interesting that the benign mushroom parts are attached to the bigger, malignant chunk of the mushroom (you would normally consider the cancerous element to be the smaller one, latching onto the main entity in question).
Paul McCarthy's Mechanical Pig. The slumbering creature is so impressive that if not for the visible mechanical and electronic gizmos on which it lies, you would think it was real. It even has a puckering sphincter - attention to detail if ever I saw it! If you like art that is both obscene and hilarious simultaneously, it's worth exploring some of McCarthy's other masterpieces as well (e.g. Santa Claus with a Buttplug!).
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