You have to acknowledge Adam Lindemann’s skill. In a short time, Venus Over Manhattan has become a reference-setting gallery with pop-up locations in Miami and who knows where else?

“… a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Nike of Samothrace.” declared artist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in his Futurist Manifesto of 1909. Not just the Futurists were inspired by the machine that for over 125 fascinates people. Many artists have a passion for cars, and create art influenced by the automobile.

During Art Basel Miami Beach, the gallery Venus Over Manhattan presented an exhibition that provided another view on art’s special relationship with the car as cultural icon and fetish object. Entitled Piston Head – Artists Engage the Automobile, the show includes works by Ron Arad, Bruce High Quality Foundation, César, Dan Colen and Nate Lowman, Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, Virginia Overton, Olivier Mosset/Jacob Kassay/Servane Mary, Richard Phillips, Richard Prince, Tom Sachs, Salvatore Scarpitta, Kenny Scharf, and Franz West. Los Angeles-based artist Joshua Callaghan created a new work for the exhibition, a signature ‘rubbing’ of Ferrari’s LaFerrari hybrid supercar, which was on view with Piston Head in Miami Beach.

Fittingly presented on the the top level of the Herzog & de Meuron designed 1111 Lincoln Road parking garage, the exhibition features artworks that both show the power and glamour of the car, such as Richard Phillips’ Playboy Charger, as well as its decay and desolation, such as Lucien Smith’s totally rusted truck that is riddled with countless bullets – a vehicle that once served as the target at a shooting range.

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Hyperallergic went to Lindemann’s Calder shadows show:

But the showing at Venus Over Manhattan, while co-organized by the Calder Foundation, doesn’t claim to adhere to the artist’s intentions. The darkness removes some of his most crucial stylistic elements: the handmade surfaces, texture, and color that make his craft more than a balancing act. What remains is the austerity of form and movement.

Calder’s mobiles aim for mimesis in their biomorphic forms and behavior; they function as nervous systems with reactions and reflexes. Calder Shadows, on the other hand, is not about nature — it’s a spectacle. Fans blow the mobiles at a defined pace, while the lighting effects cast angular frames of white illumination reminiscent of German Expressionist cinema.

 

Seeing Calder Through His Shadows