“It’s about to be over, the idea that a car runs free. Those days are about to close. It’s a little bit like… the turn of the last century and … horse buggies are everywhere and the automobile is about to arrive. Something else is about to arrive.”
—Chris Burden, discussing his sculpture, Metropolis II, currently on exhibit at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Drove(s)
January 12-February 12, 2012
Opening Reception January 11, 6-9p.m.
The Southeastern Railway Museum, Duluth, GA
The Southeastern Railway Museum is pleased to present Drove(s), an art exhibition that takes a look at the culture of automobiles, our dependence on them, and their environmental impact.
The culture of automobiles starts with America’s early love affair and the freedom that was promised. The ever-changing design and demands for improved technology in cars led to a relationship of disposability and a desire for the new. These desires and demands throughout the 20th century led to an over abundance of automobiles and a serious impact on the environment.
The automobile and the freedom it promised led to the construction and expansion of our urban centers. Unchecked suburban sprawl now stretches for many miles around every American city with the car being the only possible means of navigating these mazes. Public transportation has become meaningless in an environment designed and built with the automobile in mind. What was once freedom has now become massive traffic jams and a daily drudgery of commuting along parking-lot-highways.
Can this dependence on the automobile and fossil fuels be sustained? How do we change our environments to become more pedestrian and mass-transit friendly while maintaining the freedom of mobility to which we have grown accustomed?
This restored train depot that once sheltered passengers waiting for their train, now functions as an exhibition space, a space that we have driven in our cars to be here to see art. In this sense, the depot itself is as much a part of the exhibit as the art hanging on its walls.
Artists in the exhibition: Tim Barnwell, Andrew Bush, Bill Daniel, Veronica de Jesus, Brian Dettmer, John Duckworth, Peter Essick, Walker Evans, John Gutman, Brian Holcombe, Lauren Hughes, Michael Koehler, Joey Kotting, Christopher McNulty, Rondal Partridge, Ben Roosevelt, Brian St. Cyr, Chip Simone, Mark Steinmetz, Christian Tedeschi, Bruce Wrighton
Image: Brian Holcombe, Kudzu Camino (2006 – 2011)
18″ x 20″, Giclee print, Edition of 6 + 2 artist proofs
Courtesy of the artist and Saltworks Gallery