Richard Jackson: Car Wash
CAB Art Center Brussels
Richard Jackson’s 2014 installation 'Car Wash' at CAB Art Center Brussels is a fully automatic car wash, modified and designed to transform brand new cars into works of art. Soft cloth brushes on the top and sides have been replaced by a 1 ton spiked metal drum and solid metal rotating balls. The cars that come out of this machine are smashed, destroyed, and then applied with a clean coat of paint to finish it off.
Richard Jackson, a pre-eminent figure in American contemporary art since the 1970’s. Influenced by both Abstract Expressionism and action painting, Jackson explores a performative painting process which seeks to expand the potential of painting by upending its technical conventions. For Jackson, paint is not a tool used to create a representational image, but is a ubiquitous liquid which is spurted, splattered and sprayed over the surface of his installations. Since the 1990’s his proclivity towards engineering has revealed itself in a series of elaborate painting machines.
