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Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Hoopmobile

Welcome to one of Hoop's many Hoopmobiles and the world of art cars. Hoop refers to this incarnation as Techno Trash - an assemblage he says represents ''all the transitions we've gone through over the years, from a needle on a record to a laser beam on a record.'' Steven Hooper, or Hoop (the self proclaimed King of Art) as he prefers to be called, started doing art cars in the East Village about 20 years ago when he did hundreds of club performances and parties. His work has been featured in over 40 museums and gallery shows (Fusion Arts, Chelsea Art Museum, MOMA etc.), television and the news media. Click here for his story and photos of his vehicles. His motivation is to bring art to the average person on the street, who he feels can't name one living artist - "Warhol and Dali were the last of the household name artists." Currently living in Clifton, New Jersey, where he grew up and now cares for his mother, Hoop makes frequent trips to SOHO (one of his old stomping grounds - he once had studios in Union Square and Prince Street) where he parks and lets passers by ogle his street art. The art car movement goes back some time and has seen many incarnations - hippie themed VW buses (such as Furthur), Janis Joplin's psychedelic Porsche, Lennon's paisley Rolls Royce, the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile. There is even a BMW series done by well known artists like Warhol and Lichtenstein. The Burning Man festival has had a strong representation. Harrod Blank has made several art cars, written books and made documentary films on the subject. There are now numerous art car fests nationwide - click here. It's a virtual industry ...

6 comments:

blueboat said...

fantastic photos - I'd never heard of art cars, what a brilliant idea.

AntiguaDailyPhoto.Com said...

I believe Kubrick would have found this car appropiate for his Clockwork Orange.

Brian Dubé said...

I never realized these art vehicles were part of such a large, established scene with films, books, festivals etc. I guess any decent concept these days gets coopted and/or commercialized very quickly.
Brian

Anonymous said...

Man!!!!...another great post, Brian!!

Don't know how you find (think of) this stuff, but it sure sets this blog far, far apart from others of its ilk. Well done.

You sure make NYC look very, very interesting...

Anonymous said...

My sister and I saw this car when we were driving around, it was parked outside a house in Clifton, i guess it was his. It was so crazy we had to get out of the car and take a picture of it parked! It was really fun, something you dont usually see in Jersey.

Anonymous said...

Before I moved to my current town he was my neighbor !!!