Car culture: New York’s Leila Heller assembles ‘Shrines to Speed’
Most curators start with a wishlist of works they want to include in a show– not Alexander Heller and Vivian Brodie. The co-curators of Leila Heller’s ‘Shrines to Speed’ chose instead to take a winding journey toward their final catalogue. The resulting exhibit firmly places their show in the lane of minimalists that ‘inject meaning into an object’ and so joins the great American drive toward metaphor.
Proof that cars have become the country’s chosen vehicle of symbolism is everywhere: literature, photographs, music. Brodie –co-founder of nonprofit Y&S, and a gifted show organizer– and Heller– Leila Heller gallery director– have had the vision to bring these disparate media together in a display that, if chaotic, is deliberately so.
Highlights include Ed Ruscha’s rare publication Every Building on the Sunset Strip and Ron Arad’s Pressed Flower Petrol Blue, 2013. Exhibited for the first time is a work by Bay Area painter Richard Diebenkorn, known for his contributions to abstract expressionism. There are artists overtly associated with cars: John Chamberlain and, in recent years, Arad– as well as less expected additions, like the photography of Ruth Orkin.
You can’t talk about cars in American culture without talking about pure existential fear, perhaps best expressed in the anonymity of being pinned behind one of John Baldessari’s dots– also included in the show. Walking through the gallery, one is chauffeured toward the conclusion that the car will free you; the car will destroy you... but all will be fine, as long as you keep moving.
Heller and Brodie reference this oblivion as a key theme in the show. They find the literary equivalent in Bret Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero when narrator Clay becomes deeply unsettled by a billboard proclaiming ‘Disappear Here.’ Clay, of course, responds by gunning his car away.
‘Shrines to Speed’ calls to mind two distinctly different types of trauma. There’s the physical event of Sylvie Fleury’s bubble gum pink wreck, rending apart the machine. But there is also the slow, gasoline-leak like seeping of the American dream out of the individual.
Or, as Brodie puts it, ‘the loneliness of chasing a dream.’
INFORMATION
‘Shrines to Speed’ is on view until 9th July. For more information visit the Leila Heller website
ADDRESS
568 West 25th Street New York, NY 10001
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
-
The Brazilian Forest House injects art into a modernist-inspired, contemporary design
The Brazilian Forest House, designed in upstate São Paulo by FGMF, brings together nature and art
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Waiting room inspo: Inside Studioutte’s cinematic Sala D’Attesa at Milan Design Week
Studioutte’s Sala D’Attesa, staged in Nolo during Milan Design Week 2024, was a scenographic interior merging different design sensibilities
By Laura May Todd Published
-
Bang & Olufsen’s Recreated Classics series continues with a CD player revival
Bang & Olufsen’s Beosystem 9000c music system brings the original digital compact disc format back to life and pairs it with the latest in speaker design
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
The cosmos meets art history in Vivian Greven’s New York exhibition
Vivian Greven’s ‘When the Sun Hits the Moon’, at Perrotin in New York City, is the artist’s first solo exhibition in the USA
By Emily McDermott Published
-
The Met’s ‘The Real Thing: Unpacking Product Photography’ dissects the avant-garde in early advertising
A new exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York explores the role of product photography and advertising in shaping the visual language of modernism
By Zoe Whitfield Published
-
Tony Notarberardino’s Chelsea Hotel Portraits preserve a slice of bygone New York life
‘Tony Notarberardino: Chelsea Hotel Portraits, 1994-2010’, on show at New York’s ACA Galleries, is the photographer’s ode to the storied hotel he calls home and its eclectic clientele
By Hannah Silver Published
-
‘LA Gun Club’: artist Jane Hilton on who’s shooting who
‘LA Gun Club’, an exhibition by Jane Hilton at New York’s Palo Gallery, explores American gun culture through a study of targets and shooters
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Detroit Institute of Arts celebrates Black cinema
‘Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971’ at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) brings lost or forgotten films, filmmakers and performers to a contemporary audience
By Anne Soward Published
-
BLUM marks 30 years of Japanese contemporary art in America
BLUM will take ‘Thirty Years: Written with a Splash of Blood’ to its New York space in September 2024, continuing its celebration of Japanese contemporary art in America
By Timothy Anscombe-Bell Published
-
Todd Gray’s sculptural photography collages defy dimension, linearity and narrative
In Todd Gray’s New York exhibition, he revisits his 40-year archive, fragmented into elaborated frames that open doors for new readings
By Osman Can Yerebakan Published
-
Frieze LA 2024 guide: the art, gossip and buzz
Our Frieze LA 2024 guide includes everything you need to know and see in and around the fair
By Renée Reizman Published