The most alluring aspect of the exhibition at the Fondation Cartier is its suggestion of what photographs of cars absent of people can convey.
Cars
Posted inBooks
Eerie Photographs of Solitary Cars in 1970s New York
Cars: New York City, 1974–1976 collects 115 photographs by Langdon Clay of cars both beautiful and battered in the nighttime.
Posted inIn Brief
The Car of the Future Could Be a Mirrored Minimalist Sculpture
Silicon Valley is convinced that self-driving cars are the future of transport, and that in a few decades, we’ll look back at the vehicles of today — massive hunks of glass and metal hurtling around, powered by dumb humans — with disbelief.
Posted inArt
‘Back to the Future’ 30 Years Later, or Riding in Cars with Millennials
One of the greatest pleasures of teaching design history to college students is time travel.
Posted inArt
Finding People in Los Angeles’s Urban Sprawl
The photographer Patrick Gookin recently explored the psychological ramifications of car culture in a series called LA by Car.
Posted inArt
20th-Century Models of Speed and Wonder
Transportation is one of the few industries in which design has so consistently been the driving force. Who hasn’t at some point been stopped in their tracks by the polished silhouette of a classic Corvette? The car’s controlled curves evoke speed, and that speed creates the illusion of power.
Posted inArt
Doing Battle with the Remains of Industrial America
SAN FRANCISCO — On a blustery, sunny Sunday afternoon, some 40 or 50 people gathered on a quiet road in nowheresville, 45 miles south of San Francisco in a quasi-industrial area of Fremont, to “celebrate the essence of NUMMI.”