Game Art: Coll.eo's "CARJACKED (After Barbara Kruger)" (2012)
The eight automobile in the ongoing CARJACKED project, a 1988 BMW M5, was appropriated by Barbara Kruger's avatars
"It should not come as surprise that women are blatantly underrepresented in the BMW Art Cars initiative. After all, cars are boys toys, embodiments of male fantasies of power, control, and domination. Of the seventeen artists that participated in the BMW Art Cars initiative, only two are women: Esther Mahlangu (Zaire, 1991) and Jenny Holtzer (United States, 1999). Quite ironic, considering that, in the vernacular, the BMW acronym is often explained as “Bring Me Women”, “Brings Me Women”, “Beer, Motorcycles, Women”, and “Beats Most Women”.
The digital series of BMW Art Cars finally welcomes Barbara Kruger. For this project, the American artist, who studied with Diane Arbus at Parson’s School of Design and worked at Condé Nast Publication for several years as a graphic designer, art director, and picture editor, has radically transformed an icon of masculinity: a 1988 BMW M5 car. Kruger explicitly addresses the ideologies that drive - no pun intended - car culture. She enhanced the chassis of this Teutonic mechanical beast with her trademark white letters against white backgrounds, but also with white letters against black backgrounds. Her text questions the viewer/driver about consumerism, individual desire and gender role, status and privilege, political issues and power." (Coll.eo)
Additional details about Kruger's BMW Art Car can be found here.
The video of Kruger's BMW Art Car is available here.
LINK:Previously:FRAMING GAYS IN THE MILITARY, DISCIPLES
Submitted by Matteo Bittanti