Smart Makes Art With Its Own Oil

Autoshow — Mon, 17 May 2010 14:00:21 +0000

It’s no secret that the Smart brand positions itself as a patron of the arts, sponsoring more works than the House of Medici. The latest “Smart art” is both high-concept and high tech, using a robot to translate the sound waves from an accelerating fortwo into visual art.

To contrast the differences between internal combustion engines and electric vehicles, Berlin-based artist Nils Voelker recorded the sound waves from both gas and electric Smart fortwos and fed the data into a robot he created.

“I wrote a program that analyzes the sound files and creates images according to the frequencies and level information and the computer somehow tells the robot where to go to draw the final image,” Voelker said.

To represent the gas fortwo, he fashioned a device that let the robot paint on canvas with motor oil — kind of like a Logo turtle. For the EV, Voelker took the taillights off the Smart, attached them to the robot and took long-exposure photographs as the robot moved.

“The angle of the lines on the oil paintings is defined by the frequencies and the amount of lines by the level,” he said. “The route we drove starts on the top and ends on the bottom. On the light paintings the level defines the lengths, the frequencies and the color of the lines and the driven route goes along clockwise.”

The resulting paintings and photographs were exhibited as a part of the Smart Urban Stage, a traveling exhibition platform meant to examine the future of cities. The Urban Stage is currently set up in Berlin, and it will travel to cities across Europe over the next twelve months.

That’s Berlin’s Karl-Marx Allee in oil above, and by EV below.

“The engine is somehow the most important and necessary part of a car and in addition, it’s sound is maybe the biggest difference between an electric vehicle and one with a combustion motor,” he said. “And besides from that I just like the idea of making a sound visual and to combine two different senses this way.”

Here’s hoping Voelker’s work catches on. Not only would we love to put the sound of an accelerating 599 GTO above the sofa, but a ‘68 MGB in our garage leaks so much oil we could leave a canvas under it and pass it off as a Jackson Pollock.

Photos: Nils Voelker

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BMW Chooses Schlock for Its Next Art Car

Autoshow — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:00:57 +0000

It’s a sin to encourage the mediocre. And yet, BMW has seen fit to appoint Jeff Koons as the next “artist” who gets to make a BMW Art Car. Apparently, the company didn’t see the error of its ways in employing Chris Bangle, a designer with all the aesthetic sense of Arno Breker.

For those of you who have no idea what we’re talking about, BMW has since 1975 occasionally invited artists to use its cars as canvases. The result has been some striking vehicles, like the M1 Group 4 racer (shown above) that Andy Warhol painted in 1979. All told there have been 17 BMW Art Cars painted by some immensely talented artists.

But Koons? The talent-bereft hack who makes huge balloon sculptures? The guy Mark Stevens of The New Republic called “another of those who serve the tacky rich”?

Oh, brilliant choice, BMW.

What makes this so appalling is the company Koons joins. The list includes Alexander Calder (who did the first Art Car), Ernst Fuchs, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol. Sure, you could say Calder ran out of ideas but kept at it and Warhol only really had one good idea to begin with, but Fuchs and Lichtenstein and Stella? They’re masters, no two ways about it. And let’s not forget Robert Rauschenberg did an Art Car. Jenny Holzer, too.

And what has Jeff Koons done? This:

Yes, that’s a gilt gold sculpture of Michael Jackson and his pet chimp, Bubbles.

No wonder Robert Hughes, the renowned art critic and author of The Shock of the New, said comparing Koons’ works to Seward Johnson was “like debating the merits of dog excrement versus cat excrement.” He also said Koons “has the slimy assurance, the gross patter about transcendence through art, of a blow-dried Baptist selling swamp acres in Florida. And the result is that you can’t imagine America’s singularly depraved culture without him.”

Now let’s look at some of the Art Cars Koons has to live up to:

Alexander Calder painted Art Car No. 1, a 3.0 CSL in 1975.

Ernst Fuchs added his bold strokes to this 635 CSi in 1982.

Here’s a Roy Lichtenstein-enhanced 320i from 1977.

Frank Stella layered his design on another 3.0 CS in 1976.

Michael Jagamara Nelson painted this M3 racer in 1989.

Jenny Holzer added her cultural commentary to the V12 LMR in 1999. The body reads “Protect me from what I want,” while the wing says “Lack of charisma can be fatal.”

We can’t wait to see what Koons turns out. It will probably feature a Michael and Bubbles hood ornament.

Art Car photos: BMW. Top: M1 Group 4 racer, painted by Andy Warhol in 1979.

Photo of Jeff Koons’ sculpture Michael Jackson & Bubbles: Flickr / dalbera

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Smart Makes Art With Its Own Oil

BMW Chooses Schlock for Its Next Art Car