Car Art
The history of the automobile can be seen, reflected in almost every area of popular culture. One can trace the growth of the auto industry, as well as the local cultural perceptions and values, in looking at cinema and television. Although musically speaking it might seem as though there was a peak of car love in the 1950s, there are a surprising amount of songs being written today if one begins to consider how many times the Escalade (or the G6) show up on the radio. And in visual art, cars have been represented from well before the time of Toulouse-Latrec.
There are those who are particularly captured by the artistry that has gone into auto manufacturing in certain times and places, and there are also those who find an artistry in car culture. Like anything in the art world, there are those who distinguish between the highbrow and the lowbrow. The ones who are willing to cross these boundaries, and often intentionally, are often the ones doing the most interesting work. So while the artistic value of a ’57 Chevy is fairly easy for anyone to see, those who can make the more every day car into an art work are the sparks in the fire. It’s one thing to research Saturn manuals online to figure out how to fix something, but quite another to learn the insides of a car in order to make it into something else.
The advent of the art car may be something that happened a generation ago, but it seems likely that it hasn’t quite happened yet. There are some cities where the art cars are more prominent, often smaller cities with a sizable part of the population committed to culture, but they can be found anywhere with a creative class. It definitely doesn’t hurt to have a fairly open and tolerant citizenry, because there are places in the world where fierce self-expression is not entirely welcome. Almost any decorated car will remind someone of the way volkswagons became objects of expression in the 60s and 70s, so there is a certain overt or subtle allegiance to these subcultures whenever one is making their car into an art car. The very good news is that one doesn’t need an unusual canvas to make an unusual art object. Taking the most common shape and size can be a good way to create startling results, because the canvas is usual. So a budding artist could, in fact, find the Honda repair manual online that works for their car, learn some of the basics of its skeleton, and start to create an object that is, in effect, an expression of self as well as an object for the benefit of the community.







