To read my new review “Rockets to the Future: The Car-Consciousness Art of Jason Rhoades” in the Observer, click here:

Rockets to the Future: The Car-Consciousness Art of Jason Rhoades

An East Coast chapter in the late artist’s Hauser & Wirth year-long exhibition includes readymade automobiles, Picabia portraits and one whizbang centerpiece installation.

By Stephen Wozniak

Jason Rhoades 
Drive II
5 September – 19 October 2024

Hauser & Wirth 
542 West 22nd Street 
New York, NY 10011
+12127903900
newyork@hauserwirth.com
www.hauserwirth.com    

EXCERPT

“This is a used police car from Clint Eastwood’s police department. I also like that endowed history of it. But I also like the design of it: this kind of obese, bubbly design was a completely utilitarian car. It was only meant for state workers and for federal employees.” –Jason Rhoades in a mobile video interview with art critic Hans Ulrich Obrist circa 1998 featured in Drive II at Hauser & Wirth.

In the late 1990s, when artist Jason Rhoades drove Hans Ulrich Obrist through thick Los Angeles traffic in his Chevy Caprice cruiser, he talked about the many meanings of the automobile, car cultures, roadways and traffic patterns. The American highway, he explained, offers his preferred roadway type and direction of travel, a distinct path forward with “power, speed and confidence,” a contrast to the uncertainty when ambling down narrow, winding, rural roads and roundabouts commonly found in Europe. Even with their notorious traffic, Obrist reported that Rhoades didn’t mind auto congestion on L.A. freeways, since the artist adopted the car as an extension of his studio––a place to think freely about his work.  

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