Thursday, January 26, 2012

Back to the Futurama



Apparently this story is two years old, but I just saw it on the news rounds today. This art piece is called Back to the Futurama by New York artist Jeremy Dean. Dean bought a Hummer H2, cut it in half, modified it and got two horses (named Duke and Diesel) to pull it as a stagecoach around Central Park in March 2010.

The name Back to the Futurama is derived from two different things: First, a General Motors-sponsored exhibition in 1939 at the New York World's Fair, "Futurama," and Second, the 1980s film Back to the Future. Also known as the "CEO Stagecoach," Dean called the artwork part protest and part sculpture. The most environmentally efficient Hummer created, it has silver chrome, working LED lights, and an audio and video system.

Back to the Futurama seeks to represent, among other things, the failure of America's consumer culture. According to Dean, it also "focuses on the rise and fall of the automobile industry as a symbol of the vulnerability of American capitalism." The work sparked both controversy and intense conversation when it displayed at New York's Armory Week in 2010, and I believe it has been on exhibit in various other locations since then.

Unfortunately I cannot find a current location for the piece, so it looks like I may have missed it. I'll keep my eyes peeled though, because Back to the Futurama looks like it would be an amazing thing to see.

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