AFTER CARS

UNTITLED I-IV (AFTER DIRK SKREBER)

Coll.eo, 2013

Digital videos, various lengths 

Untitled I-IV (After Dirk Skreber) is an iteration of After Cars (2012) inspired by Dirk Skreber's Car Crashes Sculptures. After creating a series of apocalyptic paintings of wrecked, impaled cars in desolated, apocalyptic environments (consider, for instance, the bewildering It Rocks Us So Hard Ho-Ho-Ho and It Rocks Us So Hard Ho Ho Ho 2, 2002), in 2009 the German painter and sculptor born in Lübeck purchased a red 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spider and a 2001 Black Hyundai Tiburon 2001 with the intention of smashing them and transforming them into sculptures. He found a vehicle-testing facility in Ohio, choreographed both accidents, and then exhibited the wrecked vehicles at the Saatchi Gallery in London as part of a collective show entitled The Shape of Things To Come: New Sculpture  (2011). Skreber's wrecked cars are wrapped around poles, like deranged - yet immobile - mechanical dancers. In Coll.eo's video re-interpretation, the automobiles have been partially freed from their metal posts - these digital sculptures are not static, but dynamic. In Untitled I, a white car is slowly swinging from a pole suspended in mid-air, while in Untitled III, a blue vehicle becomes a butterfly. In Untitled II, a red automobile is dancing to the sound of imperceptible music while in Untitled IV, a green car is bouncing like a yo-yo. Both surreal and sinister, Untitled I-IV (After Dirk Skreber) lies in the interstices between autogeddon and autopia. 

Coll.eo is Colleen Flaherty and Matteo Bittanti

San Francisco, January 10 2013

Video cover images: @ Dirk Skreber, Saatchi Gallery (source)