An installation from Lexus and MSCHF adds an unfamiliar twist to automotive art

On show this weekend at Chelsea Industrial in New York, this installation by Brooklyn-based conceptual art collective MSCHF demonstrates Lexus’s ongoing commitment to art, the avant-garde and the importance of making an impact. Motomorphosis is making its debut during Armory Week and features two outlandishly altered production Lexus EVs, a Lexus RZ450e and a Lexus RX450h+.

Each model has been turned into a sculptural piece, Circle Car and Twisted Car, displayed alongside its original vehicle. The installation is a continuation of MSCHF’s exploration of the intersection between the digital and physical worlds, using techniques and aesthetics more commonly associated with 3D software, Photoshop and CGI and translating them into real-world forms.

Hence the surrealist nose-to-tail loop of the Circle Car, which looks like as if a regular Lexus RZ450e has been extruded along a circular path. It’s paired with Twisted Car, an almost nightmarish vision of the latest Lexus RX450h+ scrunched up like a wrung-out towel, with its signature fluted and twisted body forms given uncanny amplification.

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Design renders of MSCHF's Circle Car

Design renders of MSCHF's Circle Car

Design renders of MSCHF's Circle Car

These aren’t concept cars in the conventional sense, but ‘Form Cars’ – at least that’s how MSCHF describes them. ‘Where a car is concretely engineered to move, the works in Motormorphosis are sculpted to produce the idea of movement,’ the studio says. As well as computer-driven processes, the two sculptures also nod to Futurism, the century-old art Italian art movement that strove to convey dynamism through static form.

‘Most conversations about electrification focus on how a vehicle is powered. Motormorphosis asks a different question: what can electricity power in our imagination?’, says Lexus marketing’s senior manager Lisa McQueen, ‘working with MSCHF allowed us to take the automobile beyond its familiar form and explore movement, transformation and possibility in an entirely new way.’

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Lexus also produced scale models of each sculpture

Lexus also produced scale models of each sculpture

Rather unnecessarily, the exhibition’s disclaimer notes that ‘the vehicles shown are special project vehicles modified with non-Lexus parts that may void warranty, negatively impact safety, and not be street legal.’

Motormorphosis is at Chelsea Industrial, 545 W. 28th St., New York, NY
Motormorphosis.com, @ChelseaIndustrial, MSCHF.com, @MSCHF, @LexusUSA