Art cars

"Animal print" art car, with owner dressed in matching motif.

An art car is a vehicle that has its appearance modified as an act of personal artistic expression. Art car owners often dress in a matching motif (much like their previous generation hippie counterparts) when displaying their cars.

Overview

Art cars are public and mobile expressions of the artistic need to create. In creating an art car, the

"exteriors and interiors of factory-made automobiles are transformed into expressions of individual ideas, values, beliefs and dreams. The cars range from imaginatively painted vehicles to extravagant fantasies whose original bodies are concealed beneath newly sculptured shells"

(from Petersen Automotive Museum's Spring 2003 Los Angeles, California exhibit Wild Wheels: Art for the Road Gallery Guide)

The origins of the art car have been debated. Some would consider the lowriders as the first art cars since airbrushed graphics are commonly painted on the trunk lid and hood panels. During the late 1960s, singer Janis Joplin had a psychedelic-painted Porsche 356 and John Lennon, a paisley Rolls Royce. [1] [2] Partly in imitation, the late 1960s/early 1970s counterculture featured many Day-Glo painted VW Buses and customized vehicles (e.g. a customized 1977 Cadillac Fleetwood seen in the film Escape From New York). But cartistry truly attained unstoppable momentum as a social and artistic movement in the 1990s, on the spur of movies and books with a wide underground following, and the development of innovative art display venues such as Burning Man.

At this writing, Art Cars are a nationwide (and Canada-wide) phenomenon. In the U.S. Art Cars are strongest throughout Texas and the Southeast, in the Minnesota/Wisconsin area, and on the west coast. They are least evident in the Northeast, although there is a large Baltimore show. In Canada, Art Cars are very big in British Columbia and also in the western Canadian plains (see Artcar Society of Canada) with shows in Nanaimo, B.C. and Regina, SK.

Art car events

• Burning Man
• Houston Art Car Parade
• San Francisco Bay Area Art Car Fest
• Seattle Art Car Blow-out

Links

• Greaser Grrls' Photos from ArtCar Fest 1999
• Art Cars in Cyberspace
• Art Cars page at AVAM
• Intrepid Trips
• Road Squadron
• Burning Man - Department of Mutant Vehicles (DMV)
• Baton Rouge Art Car Parade

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Video: Burning Man Art Cars