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Tinsquo's curatorial project, Adjacent To Life, presents Car Show by Cooper Ronan.
@c0000000000per's statement:
As one could probably gather, I’ve become a bit obsessed with the cars that sit on the streets of New York City. Battered and war-torn from wild drivers, winter weather, street sweepers etc., these cars screech loud and proud, puttering along, only to potentially break down the next avenue over.
My appreciation of cars started at an early age with the usual Scholastic book fair poster on my wall and watching BBC’s Top Gear. Ironically, it was the repetitive walks I would take, in whatever neighborhood I lived in at the time, that I found myself daydreaming of these cars. Everywhere I looked, they taunted me with their roadside freedom. Scratched, crashed, dented, rusted over and in need of repair, all waiting in single file lines along every block. It doesn't make sense really, in a city so walkable, with public transportation built into the infrastructure, and “No fucking spots anywhere!” – Why would anyone have a car in this city? What drives us to hold on to these pieces of highly manufactured garbage, expensive repair after expensive repair?
It's obvious really, they're icons. Symbols of a limitless and immediate reality, of dreams realized or lost, of extra space held in a city that can feel so small. Above all, there’s hope welded into their chassis. They represent us as people. We slap stickers on the back bumpers, boasting our political beliefs, brands we like, or silly jokes we think will align with someone behind us. We raise them up, drop them low, add suspension, tint the windows; they’re our personalized motor companions. Their iconography is nostalgic, they remind us of the dreams we once had when we held child-like bewilderment for toy cars, now actualized as functional motor vehicles.
Car Show is a return to that boyhood glimmer in my eyes. It grapples with my simple interest in cars and how that’s informed an entire construct in my life, such as notions of masculinity. It’s a car-centric coming of age, distracted and fixated on aesthetics while crossing the road from boyhood to manhood. It is both an escape and acceptance – so utterly boy, it hurts. Beyond all, it is a love letter to these icons and my younger, present, and future self’s infatuation with them.
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Car Show is on view through April 5, 2024 at the Adjacent To Life gallery housed in Ninth Street Espresso (341 E. 10th Street at Ave B, New York City). Opening reception: Saturday, March 9, 7:00 - 9:00.
Posted by Mark Roth at March 9, 2024 10:45 AM