INTERSECTION
MAGAZINE, WINTER 2006
HIGHWAY FLOTILLA - LA'S ART CARMADA
Text by Shana Nys Dambrot
Residency projects are usually inspired by what the visiting artist makes
of
their temporary home, se when German multimedia artist Sonja Vordermaier
came to LAs MAK Center, it was not so strange that her project would focus
an the city's infamous love/hate relationship with the car.
Inviting 15 local and international artists to participate, Vordermaier
organized
an all-day performance event and subsequent exhibition called Carmada.
Participants were told to transform their individual vehicles into mobile
art
modules and drive them through the city in a parade, with wildly eclectic
results.
Dawn Kasper's 'Truck Garden' saw a cactus garden planted in the back of
her
pick up and Vordermaier's own contribution 'Booming Broncmush filled the
back
of an SUV with a cave growing fertile and fragrant white mushrooms.
Both artists addressed with varying degrees of hope and cynicism the tenuous
relationship between city streets and the natural world.
Similarly, Michael Markowsky's 'Joshua Tree Driving Painting Project'
saw the
artist sitting on his car, legs tucked in through the sunroof, painting
a landscape
while the car drove at 75 mph down a lonely desert highway. Video and
performance
artist Pascual Sisto designed 'Rainbow Riot', in which he rigged his old
Saab to spew
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