Lexus Gets a MSCHF Twist in New Car Sculptures
Part of the collaborative ‘MOTOMORPHOSIS’ pop up show during Armory Week in New York.
Summary
MSCHF and Lexus unveil two new collaborative car sculptures in a pop-up exhibition in New York, open from September 24 through 26
The works on view reconfigure a pair electrified Lexus vehicles, made to evoke the feeling of movement
MSCHF has gained a global rep for breaking (and bending) has gained a global rep for breaking (and bending) the status quo. Beyond the Big Red Boots, take this micro-micro-purse, for instance. Or the ATM installation at Art Basel Miami that ranked users by their account balance. Their latest project is no less twisted.
This Armory Week, the Perrotin-backed provocateur collective is linking up with Lexus to debut a new pair of car sculptures, as part of a pop-up exhibition, dubbed MOTOMORPHOSIS, at Chelsea Industrial, running from September 24 through 26.
The works on view rework two of the automaker’s electrified vehicles — a Lexus RZ450e and Lexus RX450h+ — into seriously surreal pieces, made to evoke the feeling of movement, rather than movement itself. The first is stretched to loop, nose-to-tail, doomed to drive in a circle forever, in a piece called “Circle Car.” “Twisted Car,” nearby, twists the latter model into a “dramatic longitudinal torsion,” per the brand. Functional versions of the vehicles will be displayed alongside their sculptural counterparts.
MSCHF calls these pieces ‘Form Cars,’ perhaps inspired by a lineage of automotive artworks, like Pippa Garner‘s “Backwards Car” and “Karmann,” and Erwin Wurm’s bubbly and bizarre sculptures.
“Most conversations about electrification focus on how a vehicle is powered. MOTOMORPHOSIS asks a different question: what can electricity power in our imagination?” said Lisa McQueen, Lexus’s senior marketing manager. “Working with MSCHF allowed us to take the automobile beyond its familiar form and explore movement, transformation and possibility in an entirely new way.”
