Venus Over Manhattan Delivers Art in the Form of Cars
By Corinna Kirsch
Take an elevator to the 7th floor of an open-air parking garage, and you’ll find Piston Head, an exhibition of over a dozen artist-designed cars, motorcycles, and trucks shipped from all over the world. It takes a whole lot of money to make that happen—and it’s that very same display of wealth that perfectly sums up the Miami art fairs. From a Rolls Royce with a wormy, penis-like hood ornament to a Damien Hirst dot-covered Mini Cooper, these undrivable cars make it clear that art is a quite funny, though impractical luxury good.
Here, artists range from embracing the gloss of the upper class to shooting it full of holes (Lucien Smith’s rusty, bullet-riddled truck); no matter what, they can’t escape its influence. It’s uncomfortable to admit that this may be the way of the world—and why I’m in Miami—but it’s the truth. Venus Over Manhattan knows how to cater to this crowd—as a plus, the skyline view is gorgeous.