International media shooting in front of Noor’s Beetle Sphere at the 2017 Formula One Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, held at the Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi, 23-26 November, 2017.
Reaching out to new audiences, across diverse sectors of the society to attract greater appreciation and acceptance of art is an ongoing process for artists, and the art industry. In recent years the Indonesian contemporary art world has held successful events merging with the fashion and design worlds, gaining increased exposure and popularity for the leading brands, including fairs, galleries and the artists themselves.
Yogyakarta based artist Ichwan Noor, recently, had a unique opportunity to capture the attention of a perhaps an unlikely sector of the public – the international Formula One racing industry and F1 fans. He exhibited three of his sculptures at the 2017 Formula One Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, held at the Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi, 23-26 November.
Upon invitation from the Yas Marina Circuit Noor exhibited three of his iconic works, inspired by the motor vehicle, in Art@Yas, a side program conducted at the main grandstand during the Middle East’s biggest international event. The final race of the 2017 calendar attracted a crowd of over 60,000 people. Noor’s creations enthralled the local and international audience, many of whom were amazed to see the classic, arguably the most recognizable four-wheeler on the planet, breathtakingly transformed.
Noor’s works at the Yas Marina Circuit
Caste in aluminum, featuring original auto parts of the VW beetle, 180cm in diameter, Beetle Sphere, colored black, and Beetle Sphere, colored grey are a continuation of an on going series the artist began in 2011. First exhibited internationally at Art Basel Hong Kong 2013, the works feature the 1953 Volkswagen Beetle reconfigured in a variety of new shapes, including cubes and spheres. The Beetle Sphere features in the collections of several major national and private institutions in Indonesia, Australia (National Gallery of Victoria), Germany, China, Turkey, U.S.A., Sweden and India. Noor’s third work, Got Wood, 2017, 495 x 180 x 150 cm, is a to scale replica of a F1 racing car constructed from scraps of mahogany and teak wood.
According to Noor’s artist statement, “The idea behind my sculptures emerged from a insight towards objects that are products of a ‘transportation culture’, which induce signs of spiritual emotion – to behold a vehicle is to have a ‘magical’ or supernatural identity. By combining the techniques of manipulation and substitution, the sculptures form tends towards a realistic distortion allowing fresh interpretations about the object, and a shift in observation creating associative meanings.”
“The VW is familiar to almost everybody across the globe, no matter their age or social status. I see the VW Beetle as one of the most successful designs,” said the artist who graduated from the School of Visual Art at the Indonesia Institute of the Arts (ISI), Yogyakarta, and is a Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Yogyakarta.
F1 fans enjoy Noor’s “Got Wood” a wooden replica of a F1 racing car
The works creation process involves Noor first making a polyurethane mould of a genuine Beetle carving a spherical polyurethane replica of the vehicle’s body and then casting it in aluminum. A separate spherical interior is produced and fitted to the cast exterior. The sculpture is then painted, fitted with acrylic windows and genuine trim pieces including lights, wheels and tyres.
Got Wood, (also called boyhood, manliness, or manhood) the artist said, “represents a set of traits, mannerisms, and characteristics associated with boys and men. Speed is an captivating symbol for some men who have great courage, while being a symbol of masculinity for strength, competition, courage and adventure.”
“As we all know, the Indonesian art infrastructure is still fragile so I try to take advantage of existing global infrastructure. With a limited local and world art markets it is important that artists interact with people beyond the artworld and exhibit in public spaces outside of the current gallery and museum system in order to make breakthroughts into new markets and art colections,” said the artist who was born in Jakarta in 1964, and is renowned for his large-scale sculptures of hybrid human, animal and technological forms, working with bronze, stainless steel, aluminum, various used materials and resin.
The Middle East is no longer foreign to modern art with a lot of modern art being purchaseded by collectors from the region. In the world of contemporary art collections, however, collectors from this region are still lagging behind collectors from Asia. “For me the most important thing is to create a new art map outside of the map that is understood by Indonesian artists. Professionalism, of course, within the globalized art world is a necessity.”
“There is a serious and massive effort from the UAE to participate in the flow of the contemporary art world, which is directly related to their strategy that to raise the prestige of their country. This certainly will create many opportunities for Indonesian artists,” Noor adds, and suggests, “ artists should take the littlest of opportunities of getting involved in the global art infrastructure, and anything goes is a most appropriate expression for contemporary art works that we can take on the positive side.”
Words: Richard Horstman
Images Courtesy: Ichwan Noor
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