Automotive Prosthetic : Technological Mediation and the Car in Conceptual Art

Automotive Prosthetic

Automotive

University of Texas Press, Austin

and the Car

i n Con c eptual A r t

Charissa N. T erranova

T e c hnologi c a l

Mediat i o n

Prosthetic

Copyright © 2014 by the University of Texas Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

First edition, 2014

Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to:

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♾ The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-­Publication Data

Terranova, Charissa N.

 Automotive prosthetic : technological mediation and the car in conceptual art /

by Charissa N. Terranova. — First edition.

  pages  cm

 Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-292-75404-1 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Automobiles in art. 2. Conceptual art—Themes, motives. I. Title.

N8217.A94T47 2014

743′.89629222—dc23

2013016700

doi:10.7560/754041

To Caroline, Camille, Mimi, and Sophia

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Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Conceptual Car Art:

Rethinking Conceptualism through Technology 27

Chapter 2 Mobile Perception and the Automotive Prosthetic:

Photoconceptualism, the Car, and Urban Space 57

Chapter 3 The Nows of the Automotive Prosthetic:

Moving Images, Time, and the Car 115

Chapter 4 Communication Space:

Automotive Urbanism in Dan Graham’s Work 151

Chapter 5 Hummer:

The Cultural Militarism of Art Based on the SUV 187

Chapter 6 Richard Prince:

The Fetish and Automotive Maleficium 227

conclusion The “Freedom” of Automotive Existence 265

Notes 279

Bibliography 307

Index 323

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\\ ix

Preface

In writing about the genesis of this book, I might look deep into my past for

the sources of influence and inspiration: to the wry collision of distinct forces

that was growing up as part of a family of classical musicians in the capital of

country music, Nashville, Tennessee; to being, like so many Americans, an

automotive citizen for as far back as I can remember; or to my early gradu￾ate training as an art historian by scholars who viewed this discipline through

the prism of landscape and architecture. Yet, the more resonant, even causal

sources of this book are located in the shallows of deep memory, in the first

years of my time in Dallas.

I came to Dallas from Cambridge, Massachusetts, in January 2004 to

teach contemporary art history at Southern Methodist University in what

was then called the Division of Art History. After years traveling the edges

of the intellectual universe on a ship called architectural theory, I was not so

much happy to land as I was curious and open to explore yet again new ter￾rains, the discipline of art history some eight years after my departure from

it within a small liberal arts school in the heart of Texas. The constraints on

my teaching were minimal and the collegiality high. I incorporated a fair bit

of architectural theory in the form of structuralism, poststructuralism, and

deconstruction into the two-semester survey of contemporary art of which

I was in charge. And it is from the second semester of this yearly course that

Automotive Prosthetic: Technological Mediation and the Car in Concep￾tual Art emerged. What had started as a single lecture on conceptual art

and language bifurcated, for there were, in my opinion, several photo-text

pieces that were simply not done justice by this rubric. So emerged two lec￾tures on what was long ago a new kind of art: “Conceptualism I: Language

and Semiotics” and “Conceptualism II: Architecture, Urbanism, and Land￾scape.” The second lecture became the engine of the book and, more pre￾cisely, Chapter 2.

Seeing Marie-Josée Jean’s sharply curated exhibition Road Runners in

March 2009 at VOX, Center for the Contemporary Image in Montreal,

marked another pivotal moment in the project. Jean’s exhibition brought

together the fine-arts populism of the Warner Brothers’ 1949 cartoon Fast

and Furry-ous, the stately, golden-age conceptualism of works like Ed

Ruscha’s Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966), and new works by young

artists, such as Kerry Tribe’s disparate yet recursive Near Miss (2005), a video

x // Automotive Prosthetic

installation unfolding around the reenactment of a car crash in a snowstorm.

The exhibition was about the road but not the repercussions of uniting con￾ceptual art and the car. While not recognizing or theorizing this union, Jean

had put together an extremely smart exhibition in precisely the realm with

which I was toying. In its first incarnation, the book was to be about the car

and contemporary art; however, I found that too daunting a task. Contem￾porary art is far more amorphous and expansive a field than conceptual art,

or so it seemed at the time. The experience of Jean’s show gave me the con￾fidence to explore the reaches of this project, to write this book and develop

the ideas about the automobile, conceptual art, and technology.

And then there is Dallas, Texas, a city not prized for its love of intellec￾tuals but porous and open enough to provide comfortable homes to more

than a few. I would never have been able to write this book while living in a

city other than Dallas, under the watchful eyes of certain of those inside the

intellectual bubble—that is, a number (not all) of the people defining the

parameters of the greater field of art and architectural history and theory,

many of whom are located in the cities where I lived and institutions where

I was trained. Liberating most of the time and painful on occasion, being

here outside of the bubble, writing along the periphery, gave me the neces￾sary space, autonomy, and simply put, distance from those who decide what

is allowed and what is not allowed to complete Automotive Prosthetic.

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Acknowledgments

The spatial remoteness of Dallas and Forth Worth coupled with their rich

and singular contemporary art cultures created a perfect storm for creativity:

a sense of being far away and up close at once, disconnected while absolutely

connected in. I gratefully recognize the journalism venues seeded here with

tendrils spreading outward—for which I eagerly wrote upon arrival and I

continue to write today. Though none of the writings in this book appeared

in these venues, the voice I tendered for it developed in the Dallas Observer,

ArtLies, Glasstire.com, Dallas Morning News, THE Magazine, Sculpture

Magazine, ARTnews, and Arts & Culture DFW. Cars + Highways + Unfet￾tered Grounds + Contemporary Art = Book.

My penchant for understanding and explaining art through the prism of

contemporary landscapes goes back to my training in art history at the Uni￾versity of Illinois at Chicago. I am the writer and thinker that I am because

of two innovative, open-minded, and brilliant professors, my mentors from

Chicago Mitchell Schwarzer and Peter Hales. I owe a debt of gratitude to

my mentor at Harvard, K. Michael Hays, for believing in my sometimes

spastic expression of talent and for teaching me the grave importance of uto￾pian thinking. I would like to thank John Pomara for listening over the years

and Rick Brettell for recognizing the importance of this project long ago.

Thank you Adam Herring for inviting me to give a talk about the “automo￾tive prosthetic” and “double aperture” at Southern Methodist University in

2006. Thank you to all the undergraduate and graduate students at Southern

Methodist University and the University of Texas at Dallas for the inspiration

and vibrant and continuing dialectic.

Most important, I give thanks to Trent Straughan, my best friend and

far more, and to the pride of women in my life, my mother, Caroline, and

three sisters, Camille, Mimi, and Sophia, who give loving ballast and levity

to life in general.

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Automotive Prosthetic

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