MOTION AUTOS, ART, ARCHITECTURE AT GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM BILBOA
MOTION AUTOS,
ART, ARCHITECTURE AT GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM BILBOA
April 8, 2022
– September 18, 2022
· Concept and Design by Norman Foster, curated with Lekha
Hileman Waitoller and
· Manuel Cirauqui of Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and a team from
the Norman Foster Foundation and its collaborators. Exhibition organized by the Guggenheim Museum
Bilbao and the Norman Foster
· Foundation Sponsored
by Iberdrola and Volkswagen Group.
· Collaborators: AIC-Automotive Intelligence Center in
Future, Cadillac in Clay Modelling
· Studio and Sennheiser in the immersive sound
experience.
· Benefactor: Gestamp
- Beginnings, Sculptures, Popularising,
Sporting, Visionaries, Americana, and Future, are the thematic titles of the
galleries that guide the chronological structure of the exhibition.
- Each gallery in this unique exhibition
addresses a particular historical moment or theme in which the intersection of
industrial design, art, and architecture are visible.
- Clay Modelling Studio, presented by Cadillac
brings a replica of a clay modelling studio featuring the brand’s first all -
electric vehicle LYRIQ, to illustrate both original and contemporary production
techniques.
- For Future sixteen schools of design and
architecture from around the globe consider today’s problems of urban
congestion, resource scarcity, and pollution and present visions for the future
of mobility by a new global generation of architects, designers and artists.
This gallery has received the support of AIC-Automotive Intelligence Center.
The
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents Motion. Autos, Art, Architecture, sponsored
by Iberdrola and Volkswagen Group. The exhibition celebrates the artistic
dimension of the automobile and links it to the parallel worlds of painting,
sculpture, architecture, photography, and film. Taking a holistic approach, the
exhibition challenges the separate silos of these disciplines and explores how
they are visually and culturally linked.
The
exhibition considers the affinities between technology and art, showing for
example how use of the wind tunnel helped to aerodynamically shape the
automobile to go faster with more economic use of power. This streamlining
revolution was echoed in works of the Futurist movement and by other artists of
the period. It was also reflected in the industrial design of everything from
household appliances to locomotives.
The
exhibition brings together around forty automobiles – each the best of its kind
in such terms as beauty, rarity, technical progress and a vision of the future.
These are placed centre stage in the galleries and surrounded by significant
works of art and architecture. Many of these have never before left their homes
in private collections and public institutions, and as such, are being
presented to a wider audience for the first time.
The
exhibition is spread over ten spaces in the museum. Each of seven galleries is
themed in a roughly chronological order. These start with Beginnings and
continue as Sculptures, Popularising, Sporting, Visionaries and Americana and
close with a gallery dedicated to what the future of mobility may hold.
Future shows
the work of a younger generation of students from sixteen schools of design and
architecture on four continents, who were invited by the Norman Foster
Foundation to imagine what mobility might be at the end of the century,
coinciding roughly with the 200th anniversary of the birth of the automobile.
The remaining
four spaces comprise a corridor containing a timeline and immersive sound
experience, a live clay-modelling studio and an area devoted to models.
Unlike any
other single invention, the automobile has completely transformed the urban and
rural landscape of our planet and in turn our lifestyle. We are on the edge of
a new revolution of electric power, so this exhibition could be seen as a
requiem for the last days of combustion.
A summary of
each of these galleries and spaces is as follows.
https://www.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/exhibitions/motion-autos-art-architecture
CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI
Bird in Space
1932 – 1940
Polished
Brass
Dimension:
151.7 cm.
Peggy
Guggenheim Collection Venice ( Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation )
©Succession Brancusi – All Rights reserved (VEGAP) 2022
BEGINNINGS
This gallery
traces the birth of the automobile from the customised horseless carriage
through to its massproduction – a process viewed within the concept of motion
in the late 19th century using new technologies of photography and film. The
automobile evolved from box-like angularity to sleek aerodynamic shapes, influenced
by utilisation of the wind tunnel. This streamlined form was anticipated by the
work of artists and architects in the first decades of the 20th century, and in
the automobile, it became the very symbol of modernity.
In the
beginning, the automobile rescued cities from the stench, disease and pollution
caused by horsedrawn vehicles. In an era of climate change the automobile has
now become the polluting urban villain.
However,
battery power was also a dominant force from the earliest days of motoring. Included
in the show is an example of the Porsche Phaeton of 1900 with electric motors
embedded in the wheel hubs - a concept considered revolutionary when it drove
NASA’s first buggy on the moon.
History has
come full circle as we are on the edge of a new revolution with electric
propulsion coupled with “mobility as a service” such as ride hailing and
sharing, along with the prospect of self-driving vehicles.
BUGATTI, TYPE
35, 1924
National
Motor Museum Beaulieu, United Kingdom
Photo ©Courtesy National Motor Museum Beaulieu
ALBERT KAHN
Ford Motor Company Highland Park Rendering bird's eye view
in 1924, 1924
Ink on Paper
Dimensions: 85.4 x 227.3 cm
Collection Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
Gift of the Estate of John Bloom
CHARLES
SHEELER
Criss-Crossed
Conveyors, River Rouge Plant,
Ford Motor
Company
Dimensions:
25.4 x 20.32 cm.
The Henry Ford, United States
ANDY WARHOL
Benz Patent Motor Car (1886), 1986
Silkscreen, Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions: 153 x 128 cm
Acquired 1986, Mercedes-Benz Art Collection, Stuttgart /
Berlin
© 2022, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts,
Inc./VEGAP
Photograph: Uwe Seyl, Stuttgart
HUGH FERRISS
Chrysler
Building in New York City, 1929
Drawing
St. Louis Public Library, United States
MARGARET BOURKE – WHITE
A DC-4 Flying Over New York City, 1939
Photograph
Dimensions: 76.2 x 96.5 cm
Print Number 6/40
Foster Family Collection
© Margaret Bourke-White, VEGAP, Bilbao, 2022
© LIFE Gallery of Photography
GIACOMO BALLA
Speeding
Automobile, 1913
Coloured
Crayon on Paper
Dimensions:
24.5 x 29.5 cm.
Estorick
Collection, London, United Kingdom
©Giacomo
Balla, VEGAP, Bilbao, 2022
© Estorick Collection / Bridgeman
BENZ, PATENT
– MOTOR CAR, 1886
Mercedes-Benz
Museum, Germany
Photo ©Mercedes-Benz AG.
ELEKTRISCHER
PHAETON, MODELI
Nr. 27,
System Lohner Porsche, 1900
Technisches
Museum Wien Mit Osterreichischer Mediathek.
Photo © Technisches Museum Wien
LE CORBUSIER
Vertical
Guitar 1920
Oil on Canvas
Dimensions:
100 x 81 cm.
Fondation Le
Corbusier, Pais, France.
©F.L.C. (VEGAP) 2022
SONAI
DELAUNAY
Untitled 1916
Watercolour
on Paper
Dimensions:
36 x 26 cm.
Estate of Antonio de Guezala
SCULPTURES
The description of automobiles as “hollow
rolling sculptures” was made by the late Arthur Drexler in the early 1950’s.
That proposition is affirmed by juxtaposing four of the most beautiful
automobiles of the twentieth century with sculptures by two of the greatest
artists of the same period - the soft curves of Henry Moore’s Reclining Figure
and the restlessly fluid motions of Alexander Calder’s monumental mobile 31st
January.
Each of the
automobiles stand as examples of technical excellence – two of them laid claim
to being the fastest production vehicles on the road – but it is the beauty of
their flowing lines that that are celebrated here.
Like great works of art, the Bugatti Type 57SC
Atlantic, Hispano-Suiza H6B Dubonnet Xenia and Pegaso Z-102 Cúpula hold rare
value as limited editions for connoisseurs. Even the mass-produced Bentley
RType Continental numbered only around 200 examples. In another link with the
artist’s studio, the body shells of these automobiles were individually shaped
by craftsmen, coaxing the metal by hand to create the compound curves.
The Atlantic,
created by Jean Bugatti, was linked to a family immersed in the world of art
and architecture over several generations. Here alongside the automobile is the
sculpture Walking Panther by the uncle, artist Rembrandt Bugatti, each redolent
of motion.
ALEXANDER CALDER
January 31 (31 Janvier), 1950
Aluminium Sheet and Painted Steel Wire
Dimensions: 385 x 575 cm
Centre Pompidou, Musée National d'Art Moderne / Centre de Creation
Industrielle, Paris, Francia. Purchased by the State, 1950.
Attributed 1959
© 2022 Calder Foundation, New York / VEGAP, Madrid
JEAN BUGATTI
Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic, 1936
Merle & Peter Mullin, Melani & Rob Walton and the
Mullin
Automotive Museum Foundation
© Photograph by Michael Furman
HISPANA
SUIZA, H6B DUBONNET XENIA, 1938
Merle Peter
Mullin and the Mullin Automotive Museum Foundation, United States
© Photograph by Michael Furman
WIFREDO RICART
Pegaso Z-102 Cúpula, 1952
Louwman Museum
© Louwman Museum
HENRY MOORE
Reclining
Figure, 1956
Bronze
Dimensions:
224 x 90 cm.
Robert and
Lisa Sainsbury Collecton, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts,
University of
East Anglia, United Kingdom
©Reproduced by permission of the Henry Moore Foundation
MODERNISM, AUTOMOBILES AND ARCHITECTS BY IVAN MARGOLIUS
Automobiles are one of the products of Modernism. The
sculptural volume and lines of car bodies, enhanced by movement and the rules
of streamlining that were established in the early 1920s, reflect a Modernist
approach to art and design. At this time, automobiles became a symbol of
progress and the bearer of expectations regarding future design innovations to
come. In artistic circle, the car wheel was considered one of the most ideal
aesthetic forms due to the perfection of its functionality as well as its
poetic nature. It was associated with the machine and with the idea of minimum
effort coupled with maximum effect. In 1921, the Dutch architect Jacobus
Johannes Pieter Oud wrote:
Automobiles, steamers, yachts … possess
within themselves, as the purest expression of their time, the elements of a
new language of aesthetic form, and can be considered as the point of departure
for a new art, through their restrained form, lack of ornament and plain
colours, the comparative perfection of their materials and the purity of their
proportion.1
Modernism was a broad collection of creative ideas and
principles shared by artist and architects during the twentieth century,
through which they strived for innovation and unity in all the arts. It centred
on the recognition that developments in the arts were increasingly dependent on
advances in science, industry, engineering and technology, and the use of new
materials in the service of modern society. Modernist creativity was the
consequence of the human search for evolution and for novel forms of
expression. Its proponents aimed to rework or abandon elements from the past,
striving to build a better world by rejecting history and breaking with
tradition.
The modernist form of the design world were based on the
harmony of clean horizontal, perpendicular, diagonal and curved lines expressed
in dynamic movement that would convey powerful messages to their observers.
This was shaped by ideas from scientific, technological, industrial, transport
and engineering design, which were transposed into the field of artistic
design. This, as well as the optimism of the time, provided artists with the
fertile ground for developing new visions and forms.
Alongside automobile engineers, constructors, coachbuilders
and stylists, many architects love cars and their sculptural volumes, and
designing them offers a fitting exercise in small-scale creativity, a way of
testing their design skills. For architects, it is an opportunity to perfect
the synthesis of art, design and the latest technology, It may seem
contradictory that architects, as designers of stationary objects, should
concern themselves with automobile design, but the automobile has long stirred
architects’ imagination and passion – many regard the car as a house on wheels,
or mobile accommodation. Architects are also fascinated by automobile design
because of its constant forward outlook, always remaining in step with the
latest technology.
Architectural education trains architect as designers to
reconcile all aspects of humans’ practical and emotional attitudes to their
environment. This develops in architects a deep need to understand human
aspirations, desires, lifestyles, cultures and trends, in order to make buildings
that complement the ever – changing scene of human existence.
By getting involved in automobile design architects have
learned and found inspiration for the art craft of building, leading them to
transfer this newfound experience into innovative architectural ideas. They
recognized that automobile bodies and interiors could inspire their buildings’
construction, proportions, flowing lines, materials and finishes, colours and
comfort criteria, satisfying the spirit of Modernism through an emphasis on
beautiful forms. Le Corbusier believed that architects should study machines
such as automobiles in order to find standards on which to base modern
architectural principles.
Car interiors often mirror the comfort of the living room
and have become a perfect exercise in interior design-in many cases with better
results than are achieved in most homes. In 1940, the American designer Walter
Dorwin Teague pointed this out, nothing that ‘ the automobile makers have made,
in the past few years, a greater contribution to the art of confortable seating
than chair builders has made in all preceding history’.2
On the surface, there is very little comparison between automobile and architectural design. Architectural design almost always starts from a blank canvas, because a building’s design is usually specific to factors such as the client’s brief, site, purpose and situation. Although there are building regulations, fire-prevention and safety measures, planning directives, materials standards and codes, budgets, services, and structural, ergonomic and environmental criteria to follow, it is each architect’s desire to produce a personal, original answer to the client’s requirements and that is why there are no two building designs exactly alike.
The car industry works in the opposite way. There are safety
criteria and composite requirements concerning mechanics, structure, engine
size, performance, road holding, fuel economy, production parameters, affordability,
comfort and aesthetics, all of which essentially remain the same from model to
model. In the case of a new design, this will be based on the previous model’s
component and design development so as to reduce the enormous costs involved in
retooling the production line. Once a prototype is created, which might take
several years of research and development-unlike in architecture, where there
are only a few months or weeks to prepare drawings for construction-the car
then goes into mass production.
One significant way in which automobile design differs from
architectural expression is in the desire to empasise the car’s forms through
the play of light on their surfaces. The automobile’s polished metal or shiny
paint finish intentionally reflects light and shade, and enhances or creates
contrast between its lines, contours, colours, indentations and protrusions.
A number of well-known Modernist architects designed
innovative automobiles, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Adolf Loos, Walter
Gropius, Le Corbusier and Richard Buckminster Fuller.
Wright bought scores of automobiles, including a Packard, a
Cord, a Lincoln Continental and a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, endeavouring to own
most of the new models introduce into the market. These Machines inspired his
designs. In 1920, he sketched out a car body with a cantilevered top, sloping
radiator and windows with brise soleil louvers. In the 1950s, he designed a
three – seater city taxi with two large engine-driven wheels with single
smaller wheels at the front and rear to ease manoeuvrability.
In 1923, Loos proposed a car design based on a monocoque
Lancia Lambda chassis, using the concept of Raumplan-an idea he employed when
designing buildings-in raising the rear level of the car to allow an unimpeded
view of the road from the back seats.
For the German firm Adler, Gropius designed luxury Favorit
and Standard cabriolets and limousines, which were manufactured in the early
1930s. The cars had chromed radiators and with an added architect’s touch,
seats that could be arranged into sleeping couchettes.
Le Corbusier owned Voisin Lumineuse models that met his
architectural standards and embodied his five points of architecture: the
Voisins were raised above the ground on wheels (the equivalent of
pilotis-pillars or supports), and they had a simple plan, a horizontal band of
windows all around, a free façade and a flat roof. This was not suprising as
their bodies had been designed by an architect, Andre ‘ Noel-Noel’ Telmont. Le
Corbusier carefully placed his Voisin in several photographs of his completed
buildings to emphasise the perceived affinity between the car and his
architecture. Similarly, since then, photographers have placed automobiles
adjacent to Modernist architecture to illustrate their interaction.
Between 1935 and 1936 , as part of a competition held by the
Societe des Ingenieurs de l’Automobile, Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre
Jeanneret designed a small affordable rear-engine three-seater car called the
Voiture Minimum. They went about the proposal like architects. First they drew
a plan, then sketched elevations and sections, and later they produced several
perspective views. They confirmed that their main aim was to assure the maximum
comfort of the passengers.
In 1932, Buckminster Fuller and the sculptor Isamu Nogachi,
inspired by nautical forms and bird flight, made a model for a streamlined 4D
Transport vehicle. This, along with the
Dymaxion House and 4D Auto-Airplane projects, was a precursor to the
three-wleeled rear-engine Dymaxion car produced with yacht designer W. Starling
Burgess in the years that followed, when Dymaxion cars #1, #2 and #3 were built
with advanced aerodynamic bodies.
Some of these architects’ designs contributed to the next
stages of automobile development: several manufacturers took up the Adler
couchettes arrangement; the Voiture Minimum project pointed the way towards
future proposals for small city autos; and Dymaxion cars promoted the use of
streamlining in automobile designs in the United States, starting with the
Crysler Airflow of 1934.
Architects’ attempts to bring beauty into their automobile
designs carried the process of building a machine to a higher order. In 1934,
the English art historian Herbert Read observed: ‘ the most unexpected objects
can acquire an abstract kind of beauty. The motor – car is the obvious
example.’3 Modernist architects aimed to integrate objects from the world of
machines and industry into the world of sculptural art. Their proposal were
infused with human soul and poetry to induce emotion and empathy, elevating
them above pure industrial design. Norman Foster has emphasized this element of
Modernist architecture, writing of the ‘ poetic, sentimental and deeply
spiritual dimension’ of Buckminster Fuller’s work.4
NOTES
1-Jacobus Johannes Pieter
Oud, ‘ Über die zukünftige Baukunst und ihre architektonischen
Möglichkeiten’, in Hollandische Architektur, Bauhausbücher 10, 2nd
ed. (Munich: Albert Langen Verlag, 1926), 13.
2-
Walter Dorwin Teague, Design This Day (London: The Studio,1946),66.
3-
Herbert Read, Art and Industry (London: Faber and Faber, 1934), 54
4-
Norman Foster, ‘Insights that Last Forever’, The Architects’ journal, London,
December 14, 1995.
https://tienda.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/motion-autos-art-architecture-catalogue
POPULARISING
This gallery
shows how attempts to produce a reliable and affordable modern “people’s car”
marked the next step in the evolution of the automobile. The process started in
the nineteen thirties with the deployment of national scale industries, often
with political overtones. After the second World War, during a period of
economic recovery and shortages, the automobile became a symbol of national
pride and regeneration.
Post war
austerity-imposed limitations of size, cost and availability of materials but
did not inhibit the creativity of designers – on the contrary they were spurs
to encourage innovation and ingenuity – to do more with less.
The art and
fashion of the period fused with the mass appeal of mobility. For example, the
Austin Mini and the mini skirt – Op Art and the logo by Victor Vasarely for
Renault. Displayed automobiles like the Beetle and the VW Microbus are examples
of how companies like Volkswagen have contributed to the democratization of the
automobile.
During this
period the proliferation of compact cars in Europe and their bigger relatives
in the United States magnified the imprint of the automobile on the urban and
rural landscape of both continents.
CHRISTO
Wrapped Volkswagen (Project for 1961 Volkswagen Beetle
Salon), 2013
(Project 1961)
Collage Graphic With Original Volkswagen Covered in Fabric
and HandOverpainting
Dimensions: 55.8 cm x 71 cm
Ed. Nr.: L/XC + 160 + 50 AP + 15 HC
Galerie Breckner
© Christo, VEGAP, Bilbao, 2022
LE CORBUSIER,
Voiture
Minumum, 1936
India Ink
Dimensions:
32 x 50 cm.
Fondation Le
Corbusier, Paris, France
© F.L.C. (VEGAP) 2022
HANS FEIBUSCH
Architects
Prefer Shell, 1933
Lithograph
Poster
Dimensions:
76 x 114 cm.
Courtest of
Shell Heritage Art Collection, United Kingdom
© Sotheby’s / Bridgeman
VW, TYPE 2
MICROBUS DELUXE 'SAMBA', 1962
Stiftung
AutoMuseum Volkswagen
© Volkswagen AG
CITROEN, 2CV
SAHARA, 1961
Foster Family
Collection
Photo © Nigel Young
THE GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM BILBAO
Outsıde the Museum
Surrounded by
attractive avenues and squares, the Museum is located in a newly developed area
of the city, leaving its industrial past behind. The Museum plaza and main
entrance lie in a direct line with Calle Iparragirre—one of the main streets
running diagonally through Bilbao—, extending the city center right up the
Museum's door. Once in the plaza, visitors access the Hall by making their way
down a broad stairway, an unusual feature that successfully overcomes the
height difference between the areas alongside the Nervión River, where the
Museum stands, and the higher city level. This way, Gehry created a spectacular
structure without it rising above the height of adjacent buildings. The highest
part of the Museum is crowned by a large skylight in the shape of a metal
flower covering the Atrium, one of the building's most characteristic features.
It is possible to walk
all the way around the Museum, admiring different configurations from each
perspective and also a number of artworks installed outside by artists such as
Louise Bourgeois, Eduardo Chillida, Yves Klein, Jeff Koons, or Fujiko Nakaya.
The Museum site is crossed at one end by La Salve Bridge that, since 2007,
supports the sculpture commissioned from Daniel Buren entitled Arcos rojos /
Arku Gorriak. Stretching under the
bridge, gallery 104—an enormous, column-free space that houses Richard Serra’s
installationThe Matter of Time—ends in a tower, a sculpture gesture that brings the
architectural design to a crescendo that appears to envelop the colossal bridge
and effectively incorporates it into the building.
Inside the Museum
Once inside the Hall,
visitors access the Atrium, the real heart of the Museum and one of the
signature traits of Frank Gehry's architectural design. With curved volumes and
large glass curtain walls that connect the inside and the outside, the Atrium
is an ample space flooded with light and covered by a great skylight. The three
levels of the building are organized around the Atrium and are connected by
means of curved walkways, titanium and glass elevators, and staircases. Also an
exhibition space, the Atrium functions as an axis for the 20 galleries, some
orthogonally shaped and with classical proportions and others with organic,
irregular lines. The play with different volumes and perspectives generates
indoor spaces where visitors do not feel overwhelmed. Such variety has
demonstrated its enormous versatility in the expert hands of curators and
exhibition designers who have found the ideal atmosphere to present both large
format works in contemporary mediums and smaller or more intimate shows.
In addition to the
gallery space and a separate office building, the Museum has a visitor
orientation room, Zero Espazioa; an auditorium seating 300; a store/bookstore;
a cafeteria; and two restaurants: a bistro and a one Michelin star haute
cuisine restaurant.
http://www.guggenheim-bilbao.es/en/the-building/inside-the-museum/
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SPORTING
In the post war economic boom years of
the1950s and 60s the technical demands of competitive racing – particularly
Formula 1 – saw racing and road automotive design diverge further into separate
design disciplines. The market for fast sports cars expanded and drew on the
technology of their racing counterparts.
The five
examples selected are each in their own way a delight to behold, quite aside
from their racing pedigrees on roads and closed circuits. They merge art and
fashion to satisfy the fantasy of speed and adventure – glamorous and desirable
as objects of contemporary culture. The most emblematic examples became
powerful images on the big screen, emulating the Hollywood stars in their
degree of celebrity.
These
automobiles were portrayed as cult objects by artists and designers such as
Andy Warhol and Ken Adams. In his lifetime, Frank Lloyd Wright owned more than
eighty cars – many of which are classics and are featured in this exhibition.
His unbuilt project in 1925, for Gordon Strong, the “Automobile Objective”
shown here, was the first use of a central spiralling ramp which would later be
the central feature of his Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
GIOTTO BIZZARRINI
Ferrari 250 GTO, 1962
Ten Tenths
© Ben de Chair
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
Gordon Strong Automobile Objective and Planetarium (unbuilt)
Sugarloaf Mountain, Maryland, 1924–25
Perspective
Coloured Pencil on Tracing Paper
Dimensions: 50.8 x 78.7 cm
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of
Modern
Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia
University, New York)
© 2022 The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale,
Arizona
© Frank Lloyd Wright, VEGAP, Bilbao, 2022
LANCIA,
STRATOS ZERO, 1970
Philip
Sarofim Collection, United States
© Photograph by Michael Furman
FRANCO SCAGLIONE
Alfa Romeo BAT Car 7, 1954
Rob and Melanie Walton Collection
© Photograph by Michael Furman
VISIONARIES
Visionaries
starts in the mid-20th century when the stage was set for utopian vehicles, and
artists and designers explored radical new forms on the themes of speed and
motion. Many anticipated possibilities for the future of driving that were
decades ahead of their time. Automobiles inspired by the desire to go ever
faster pushed the limits of engine technology and aerodynamic forms, inspired
by the new technologies of turbine, jet, nuclear, and automation.
This space
celebrates a diverse range of visionary vehicles and their designers and
contemplates the beauty of their fluid forms and aerodynamic achievements.
These are exhibited alongside works from the Futurist Movement and its
obsession with motion and speed, notably Umberto Boccioni’s Unique Forms of
Continuity in Space (1913), with its bronze robes flowing as if in a wind
tunnel.
There are
visual affinities between the futurist paintings of Giacomo Balla and the
one-off concept cars such as the three examples from General Motors—exhibited
here together for the first time in Europe— from the nineteen-fifties. This
period also saw depictions of driverless cars – a science fiction vision that
is close to the reality of today. The utopian vision of automobile design is
mirrored in the art and architecture of Eero Saarinen’s modernist masterpiece
the General Motors Technical Center – described as an “industrial Versailles”.
HARLEY EARL
General Motors, Firebirds I, II and III, 1954-1958
General Motors
General Motors / Photograph by Rodney Morr
ANDREAS GURSKY
F1 Pit Stop I (F1Boxenstopp I), 2007, from the series Pit
Stop
(Boxenstopp), 2007
Chromogenic Colour Print on Diasec
Dimensions: 178 × 497 cm
Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France
© Andreas Gursky / Courtesy Sprüth Magers / VEGAP, 2022
Photo: © Fondation Louis Vuitton / Marc Domage
JOHN OWEN (LEAD DESIGNER)
Mercedes-AMG F1 W11 EQ Performance Formula One Racing Car,
2020
Mercedes-Benz Classic
© Mercedes‑Benz AG
UMBERTO BOCCIONI
Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, (Forme Uniche Della Continuità
Nello Spazio), 1913, (cast 1972)
Bronze
Dimensions: 117,5 x 87,6 x 36,8 cm
Tate, Purchased 1972
© Tate
TULLIO CRALI
The Strength
of the Curve 1930
Oil on Canvas
Dimensions:
70 x 90 cm.
Associazione
Culturale FuturCrali – Private Collection
© Tullio Crali. Photo; Studio Closeup
R.
BUCKMINSTER FULLER
Inventions:
Twelve Around One, 1981
Screenprint
on Paper
Dimensions:
75.9 x 101.5 cm.
Norman Foster
Archive
© Courtesy The Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller
R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER
Dymaxion #4, 2010 (Based on #1-3, 1933-34)
Foster Family Collection
© Norman Foster Foundation
FAY S.
LINCOLN
Buckminster
Fuller’s Streamline Automobile Models, 1932
Photograph
Historical
Collections and Labor Archives, Eberly Family Special Collections Library,
Penn State University Libraries, United States
FAY S.
LINCOLN,
BUCKMINSTER
FULLER: DYMAXION TRANSPORT, 1933
Photograph
Historical
Collections and Labor Archives,
Eberly Family
Special Collection Library,
Penn State University Libraries, United States
EZRA STOLLER
General Motors Technical Center, 1956
Photograph
General Motors
GIACOMO BALLA
Abstract
Speed + Sound, 1913 – 1914
Oil on Board
Dimensions:
54.5 x 76.5 cm.
Peggy
Guggenheim Collection, Venice
( Solomon R.
Guggenheim Foundation, New York )
Italy. © Giacomo Balla, VEGAP, Bilbao
TULLIO CRALI
Destruction
Construction, 1932
Oil on Canvas
Dimensions:
66 x 48.5 cm.
Associazione
Culturale Futur Crali – Private Collection
© Tullio Crali
ANTON GIULIO
BRAGAGLIA
The Typist
1911
Gelatin
Silver Print
Dimensions:
11.9 x 16.7 cm.
Gilman
Collection, Gift of the Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005
©Anton Giulio Bragaglia, VEGAP, Bilbao
AMERICANA
Nowhere has
felt the impact of the automobile as fully as the United States. It has shaped
the American economy, landscape, urban and suburban spaces as well as popular
culture to a degree unseen anywhere else. It was the first country to feel the
benefits of mass ownership – and the first to have to confront the
environmental consequences of an auto-based society, with its energy consuming
commutes and social isolation.
The romance
of the road, the transcontinental trip across the “big country” and its endless
horizon, is emblematic of American culture with its enroute diners and filling
stations. The storied road trip has been the subject of photographs, paintings,
music, and literary tracts from the 1930’s new deal era through the present.
Here, we can view through the camera lens of Dorothea Lange, Marion Post
Wolcott, O. Winston Link, as well as the paintings of Ed Ruscha and Robert
Indiana. As a backdrop to the automobiles, we can experience the precision of a
sculpture by Donald Judd and compare it with the crushed relics of the
automobile in a work by John Chamberlain.
The range of
vehicles contrasts the extravagant tail fins of a giant luxury Sedan with a
typical muscle car next to a flamboyantly pained hot-rod and the stripped-down
utility of a wartime jeep
JEEP, WILLYS
MB, 1945
Foster Family
Collection
Photo © Nigel Young
ROBERT
INDIANA
Decade:
Autoportrait, 1960 – 1969
Serigraphs
Dimensions:
94 x 92 cm. approx. each. Ed. 41/50
Kasmin
Gallery, United States
© 2022 Morgan Art Foundation, VEGAP, Madrid
ROBERT
INDIANA
The Brooklyn
Bridge 1964
Oil on Canvas
Dimensions:
342.9 x 342.9 cm.
Detroit
Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase,
Mr. and Mrs.
Walter Buhl Ford, II Fund, United States
© 2022 Morgan Art Foundation, VEGAP, Madrid
FORD, PIERSON BROTHERS COUPE, 1934
EDWARD RUSCHA
Standard Station, 1966
7‑Color Screenprint
Dimensions: 65 x 101.6 cm
Artist proof Courtesy of the Artist © Ed Ruscha
JOHN
CHAMBERLAIN
Dolores
James, 1962
Welded and
Painted Steel
Dimensions:
184.2 x 257.8 x 117.5 cm.
Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, New York, United States 70.1925
© John
Chamberlain, VEGAP, Bilbao, 2022
Photo by Kristopher McKay
NORMAN FOSTER
I have long
been fascinated by the beauty of the machines of motion – from aircraft,
bicycles, automobiles and locomotives to ships, space vehicles and Zeppelins.
The most outstanding examples of these machines have an inherent beauty. They fire
my imagination in the same way that I am inspired by great works of
architecture, painting and sculpture. In my view, they have and artistic
dimension that derives from their capacity to move the viewer emotionally, to
spark visual delight or awe.
The best
automobile are, as curator Arthur Drexler memorably described them, like
‘rolling sculpture’ - their seductive form invite physical contact. I recall an
artist friend running his hand along the rear wing of my 1953 Bentley R Type
Continental and declaring that it was like stroking a work by Constantin
Brancusi or Henry Moore. That visual connection, once made, is incredibly
compelling.
This
exhibition has given me the opportunity to celebrate many such links between
these diverse creative worlds-you will, incidentally, find the Bentley and a
reclining figure by Moore juxtaposed in one of the galleries. Curating it has
given me a platform to protest the silo mentality that still prefers to
compartmentalize and academically protect the different disciplines, rather
than seeking to dissolve the barriers between them. It has also allowed me to
share some personal passions.
I chose the
words of the title - autos, art and architecture – carefully, mindful that
combining their disparate meanings might raise questions, or even be seen as
provocative. What, for example, does the concept of motion have to do with art
in the context of today? And what, if anything, do the artefacts of mobility –
at such vastly different scales – have in common with the separate worlds of
art and architecture?
This
exhibition starts with the birth of the automobile in the late nineteenth
century and moves on to celebrate the many different chapters and variants in
its life, including its gladiatorial role in competitive events. Woven through
these diverse stories are the themes of art and architecture. Stripped of its
function, the consciously sculpted automobile has a classic beauty and there is
another kind of aesthetic appeal in the raw edginess of the more utilitarian
vehicles, such as the military jeep.
However, the
automobile has inspired not only artists like Sonia Delaunay from the 1910s
onwards and more recently Edward Hopper and Ed Ruscha; it has also played a
pivotal role in the Futurist movement that originated in Italy in the early
twentieth century. Umberto Boccioni’s flowing figure of 1913, Unique Forms of
Continuity in Space (Forme uniche della continuita nello spazio), strides as if
in a wind tunnel, a structure that nearly two decades later would become an
essential tool in the development of streamlined form.
The father of
streamlining, Paul Jaray, designed airships and patented the first streamlined
cars. One model resulting from his wind tunnel studies bears an uncanny
resemblance to Brancusi’s Fish (Le Poisson) sculptures, such are the overlaps
between the fine arts and industrial design. The theme of interaction between
the arts and the automotive world permeates six of the exhibition’s seven
galleries.
Although the
automobile has the starring roe, the exhibition is far more than a celebration
of the aesthetic qualities of the automobile in isolation-worthy though that
would be. I link it to architecture because architecture is inseparable from
mobility - not just in terms of buildings, but also the infrastructure of
public spaces and the routes that define our cities and the highway that
connect them. More than any other machine, the automobile has transformed our
urban and rural landscapes. I connect it to art – in the form of painting,
sculpture, photography and the moving image – because art is simultaneously a
mirror of our society and a harbinger of change. This is aside from the use of
the word to describe the ‘art’ of architecture and the ‘art’ of the automobile.
It is easy to
imagine a show of cars, or an exhibition of paintings and sculptures, or one
devoted to the works of an architect. Less predictable is to mix these together
– indeed, I believe that this is the first time it has been done. So, where did
this idea originate, and why do I think it is important to try to show how
these separate domains are connected environmentally and artistically, and how
they might determine our future?
I need to go
back in time, and to begin with a disclaimer: as an invited curator, I have no
pretentions to scholarship in the fields of art or automotive history beyond
that of enjoying the contemplation of a painting, a work of sculpture or a
classic car. Professionally, I am an architect, driven passion-ately by the
design of buildings, and over time that passion has extended parallel to an
involvement in cities and their infrastructure. Starting when I was a student,
my interest ranged beyond buildings and into the routes, connections and public
spaces of towns and cities. In the creative process of designing, I also sensed
that there was a special bond between architecture and engineering that was
compromised by the traditional arm’s-length working relationship between these
professions. This led me to explore new ways of working with other skills,
particularly those of environmental and structural engineering. Consequently, I
know that the quality and performance of design, whether that of a building or
a city, is enhanced by the active participation of complementary disciplines.
The idea of mobility is one of the hallmarks of our era and is subject to upheavals as we try to combat global climate change and move from fossil fuels to clean energy. This is mirrored in the current shift of vehicular propulsion away from the gasoline-burning internal combustion engine to electric motors and hydrogen fuel. Somehow, the potential to create clean fuels for our existing technology seems to have been overlooked and this is touched on in the exhibition – for example, we highlight the possibility of greening Formula One to make it carbon free. Converting bio waste into fuel using clean energy is, again, carbon neutral, while the technology now also exists to produce aviation fuel from seawater – the latter having the added benefit of being climate restorative because it deacidifies the oceans. Then, alongside issues of propulsion, there is the growth of artificial intelligence and automation, with the prospect of robotics replacing the need for a driver or pilot. Beyond that, there is the rise of aerial mobility as we witness the rapidly evolving development of drones capable of carrying goods and people. In short mobility is moving away from evolution and could now be entering a period of revolution.
It has been
said that if you wish to look far into the future, then you must first look
back to the past. In other words, what are the lessons of history? It is worth
remembering that at the time of its birth, at the end of the nineteenth
century, the automobile was seen as the savior of the most populous
metropolitan centres, which at the time were London and New York. Mobility back
then was horse-drawn and these cities were engulfed in rising tides of horse
dung. The resulting flies, stench and disease had become unbearable. However,
in no time, the introduction of the automobile transformed cities for the
better – another form of congestion may have reigned, but the streets underfoot
were clean again.
Fast forward
a century or more and the automobile has been recast as the urban villain. It
is the equivalent of the massed horses in the past polluting cities, destroying
the quality of air, taking over the pedestrian domain and adding to the threat
to the environment. London has even taxed conventional cars out of its centre.
Many cities and towns around the world have introduced other kinds of
restriction. But the impending revolution in mobility could see a return, full
circle, to that period at the turn of the twentieth century before the electric
motor was supplanted by the internal combustion engine. Interestingly, in those
early days, more New York City taxis were powered by battery than by gasoline
and they too played a key role in rescuing the city from pollution.
It was not so
long ago that the vision of the future city was literally driven by the
automobile. Le Corbusier’s ‘ Plan Voisin for Paris ‘ of 1925, and his
subsequent proposals for the Ville Radieuse, anticipated the growth of highways
that would not only connect cities but would also constitute their urban heart.
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We see Le
Corbusier’s urban vision made concrete in a city such as Brasilia, inaugurated
as the capital of Brazil in 1960. Brasilia was conceived by a distinguished
design team, orchestrated architecturally by Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa,
within a landscape setting by Roberto Burle Marx, and whatever its shortcomings
as a place to live and work, it has an undoubted grandeur. The same cannot be
said for its smaller-scale equivalents, such as the strip malls that have grown
up ad-hoc on the edges of highways across the United States.
If an alien
species were to approach our planet from outer space and observe its surface
from afar, they might conclude that life on Earth was metallic and vehicular,
such is the physical imprint of the automobile on the landscape. Urbanity and
mobility have moved hand in hand in transforming the natural habitat.
For a period
in its history, the automobile was the prerogative of a wealthy minority before
waves of democratization moved towards a leveling of society, reflected in turn
by the availability of cars for the masses. The automobile became symbolic of
progress and the good life, often with political undertones. In its golden age in the
United States more than half a century ago, the automobile was an undoubted
status symbol. There was an optimism about the future, and concept cars in the
1950s anticipated a driverless tomorrow where the motorway commute would become
a time for family leisure and entertainment.
Today pride
of ownership in younger generations is not what it used to be; instead there is
an appetite for ride-sharing and on-demand services such as Uber, fuelled by
the rise of hand-held communication devices. Manufacturers of automobiles and
aircraft alike see themselves more in the mobility business and less in the
business of creating products for customers.
Predictions
for the future abound. Add changing patterns in the work-place to the trends
already noted and one might imagine a time not too far away when fewer vehicles
earthbound and aerial, move continuously, platooning nose-to-tail, safety and
densely moving people and goods alike.
The final
gallery in the exhibition is, appropriately, devoted to visions of the future
as seen by an emerging generation of students. This future is loosely
interpreted as the end of the twenty-first century, therefore coinciding with
the two-hundredth anniversary of the first automobile. Sixteen schools of
design and architecture from around the world have contributed their visions,
some working independently and others in collaboration with industry.
This
exhibition has been produced by the Norman Foster Foundation in collaboration with
the Guggenheim museum Bilbao team. The Foundation’s mission, through its
education and research programmes and its archive, is to help younger
generations to anticipate the future by breaking down the barriers between
different disciplines. This exhibition is entirely in that spirit but like the
Foundation itself it aims to raise the interest and curiosity of a far wider
audience-here at the Guggenheim Bilbao, that is anyone who is interested in
automobiles, art and architecture.
https://tienda.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/motion-autos-art-architecture-catalogue
