Onview.com Curates 'Car Culture: The Automobile and Photography'
20 April 2000
'Auto Show' Takes on New Meaning: Onview.com Curates 'Car Culture: The Automobile and Photography'
First Time Ever That an 'Art Gallery' Is an Exhibitor at the Auto Show
NEW YORK, April 20 Along with concept cars and buxom
"show" girls, this year's New York Auto Show will include a different sort of
eye candy -- an art exhibition. In an innovative mix of fine art, cyberspace
and Detroit heavy metal, Onview.com, the art portal and e-commerce site, has
curated an exhibition called "Car Culture: The Automobile and Photography" and
has taken a booth at the venerable New York International Automobile Show to
display the works. The virtual exhibition can be viewed online at
http://www.onview.com.
"We realized that we had a substantial number of photographs that focus on
the automobile and how it figures into American life," explains Steve Ketchum,
co-founder and CEO of Onview.com, "and we knew that the NY Auto Show attracts
thousands of people who are crazy for cars, so we put the two together."
"Car Culture" will include over 40 works spanning the entire 20th century.
All photographs will be for sale, with prices ranging from $700 to $4,000.
The Concept:
In association with Gallery 292, one of the leading photography galleries
specializing in classic 20th century works, Onview.com's photography
specialist Marla Hamburg Kennedy, formerly director of the world-famous Howard
Greenberg Gallery, curated "Car Culture" with an eye towards both novice and
seasoned collectors. According to Kennedy, research showed that NY Auto Show
attendees were affluent and clearly interested in cars, but not typically art
buyers. "We've selected works that are visually challenging but appropriate
for a 'budding' collection," she explains.
The "Car Culture" project is in keeping with Onview.com's philosophy that
the art-buying market is wildly underdeveloped. Ketchum elaborates, "The
number of people who have the means but aren't buying art is huge. This
'virtual exhibition' is a way to bring art to people on their terms -- we've
focused on a subject matter they clearly love and are selling in a manner that
is non-intimidating and completely pressure-free."
The Exhibition:
American culture has been fascinated with the automobile since its
invention over 100 years ago. Artists and photographers alike have captured
this soulful connection with a sense of romance, nostalgia, and poignant
beauty. In this engaging selection of images, many outstanding masters pay
homage to this all-American object of desire -- the car. They document the
rich relationship between two of the most powerful machines of the modern age
-- the camera and the car -- and reveal how their promise of personal freedom
and technological progress has shaped the imagination of the 20th century.
Works include images by turn-of-the-century photographers such as Martin
Munkacsi, to the car as a "fashion" object by Cecil Beaton, to New York School
"street" photography by artists such as William Klein and Arthur Leipzig, plus
works by African American photographers such as James Van Der Zee. Works by
Inge Morath, Arthur Rothstein, Sid Avery, Elliott Erwitt, Louis Faurer and
Andre Kertesz will also be shown.
The Details:
The New York International Automobile Show, celebrating its 100th
anniversary this year, will be open to the public from April 22nd through
April 30th and is located at the Jacob Javits Convention Center. Tickets are
$9 for adults/$3 for children.
About Onview.com
Onview.com launched in February 2000 as the premier Internet site for
purchasing fine art online. Onview.com has chosen only the highest quality
galleries and dealers in the world to list items for sale on its site.
Onview.com also offers original content to serve the entire art community,
including gallery Web sites, an extensive art research center, a collecting
guide, and an online magazine. The management team consists of art and
Internet professionals with years of experience in both disciplines.
Onview.com is a privately held company headquartered in New York City. AOL
keyword: onview.