…Most Fridays I’ll try to post links to a variety o thangs…

Art:

• Michael Fried: Why Photography Matters

Physics:

• Entanglement and our presumption of “Locality”, Einsteinian errors?

Design:

• Idea for Portland’s Trimet & other Public Transportation?
• Inventions that experts say wouldn’t work
• The Art Car I own at Bavarian Autoworks website

“The BMW Art Car Project was originally conceived by the French racecar driver Hervé Poulain, who had the idea of inviting an artist to use an automobile as a canvas. In 1975, Poulain commissioned American artist Alexander Calder to paint his BMW racing car. Since then, prominent artists throughout the world have joined the elite cast of Calder, Stella, Warhol, Lichtenstein and Rauschenberg, and have designed sixteen BMW Art Cars, based on both racing and regular production vehicles. The most recent contributors to the BMW Art Car program are David Hockney (1995), Jenny Holzer (1999), and Olafur Eliasson (2007). New artists are chosen by a prestigious panel of international judges, and BMW is currently in discussions for the development of the seventeenth art car.”

…they can of course talk to either Tom Cramer (painter of my 1977 320i BMW Art Car, or myself if they want to see the interesting/creative ideas I have for a new photography-art car).

My art car as Urban camo in front of Tom Cramer’s mural:

Art car and mural, both by Tom Cramer

I still think my art car is the only one to be seen on Google Earth…

Art Car seen from Outer Space

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90036. For more information about LACMA and its programming, call 323 857-6000 or visit lacma.org.

Museum Hours and Admission: Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, noon–8 pm; Friday, noon–9 pm; Saturday and Sunday, 11 am–8 pm; closed Wednesday.

Chronological list of all official BMW Art Cars:

Production cars:

• 1975 – Alexander Calder (USA) BMW 3.0 CSL
• 1976 – Frank Stella (USA) BMW 3.0 CSL
• 1977 – Roy Lichtenstein (USA) – BMW 320i Group 5 Race Version
• 1979 – Andy Warhol (USA) – BMW M1 Group 4 Race Version
• 1982 – Ernst Fuchs (A) – BMW 635 CSi
• 1986 – Robert Rauschenberg (USA) – BMW 635 CSi
• 1989 – Michael Jagamara Nelson (AUS) – BMW M3 Group A

Racing Cars:

• 1989 – Ken Done (AUS) – BMW M3 Group A Race Version
• 1990 – Matazo Kayama (J) – BMW 535i
• 1990 – César Manrique (E) – BMW 730i
• 1991 – A.R. Penck (D) – BMW Z1
• 1991 – Esther Mahlangu (ZA) – BMW 525i
• 1992 – Sandro Chia (I) – BMW Racing Touring Car

Prototypes:

• 1995 – David Hockney (GB) – BMW 850 Csi
• 1999 – Jenny Holzer (USA) – BMW V12 LMR
• 2006 – Olafur Eliasson (ISL) – BMW H2R

Art car and mural, both by Tom Cramer

If you missed it, the car is under the star in the center.

The Mural was painted by Tom Cramer in 1989 and is on NE Shaver near the intersection with N Williams.  The art car was painted in 2007.  Yesterday, I finally got a chance to visit the mural with the art car and take these snapshots.

Art Car and Mural in Portland

At some point, I will have to return with my real camera and do a serious shoot.

As you may know BMW has a long tradition of Art Cars.  In fact in 1977, BMW commissioned Roy Lichtenstein to paint a BMW 320i. That car was driven by Poulain & Mignot at Le Mans 24-hour race and finished first in class and 9th in overall finishes. Youtube on Lichtenstein car (auf Deutsch).

Art Car with gift of 3d Glasses

Yes, 3D glasses with a wonderful note written on them that said:

“Look at your car through these”

They had a great effect, so we took this combined portrait: 3D glasses, car, and me.

After trying the 3d glasses for the 1st time

Many many thanks to whoever left them!!!

In the next couple of days I’ll post images from the various gallery shows for this months 1st Thursday openings in Portland.

This was not a case of life imitating art or art imitating life. it was a case of art taking me to life in the mountains. Yes!

It was a sunny nice day to drive up and back. Though given the tiny patch of ice and how the car responded, I’m not sure that I’ll be taking it up on days when it is snowing. Three days of non-stop sunshine certainly made the roads pretty clear on the way up and down.

I noticed several taking photos of the car either on the drive or in the lot. Next time I’ll have my camera ready so I can take photos of those taking photos.

I had several interesting conversations throughout the day riding the lifts. Some of the topics were of course the weather and skiing but also conversations about Kashmir, K2, walk-abouts, Ghana, and many other things. I find Oregonians do a lot of interesting things. You can hear all about it once you get them talking.

The skiing was lots of fun throughout the day. The morning started a bit firm (icy) in the morning. So I stayed on the cord and ripped. After the Sun and warmth worked its magic the off-piste softened up. What followed were lots of shots down 4-bowl, powder keg, 1.5 bowl and many others.

They never managed to open up Heather Canyon due to A-Zone being just boilerplate ice all day. I had really hoped they would open it up so I could repeat some runs down the steepest part of pea-gravel ridge. Saturday, my buddy Dave and I hit it and the sun-bake on it was fantastic! Dave even said it was his best run of the year. Several weeks ago he went heli skiing at Kicking Horse so you know how sweet it was!