Sunday, October 19, 2008

Jim Dine -- Car Crash 1960


Spectators entered an Environment completely covered in white - white paint, white cloth, white paper - and took seats in a U-shaped row of chairs that they found around them. Looking up, they saw what appeared to be an 8 foot tall girl clothed in white (it was actually a regular girl sitting on a ladder, hidden under her white garments). They watched as a series of happenings occurred involving a man in silver with a hat of "headlights" that were pointed to and for over the audience, and two other performers, a woman, dressed as a man in a white suit and a man, dressed as a woman in a white evening dress. The man and woman carried flashlights under their arms and whenever they lit upon the man in silver he grunted as if in pain, and moved, as if seeking to hide from them. Throughout the performance, various sounds of car motors, honking and screeching tires could be heard, accompanied at times by the girl on the white ladder reciting a series of words regarding cars, with a random yet somewhat, sexual content.