Beetles is a sculpture made of two 1972 & 1974 Volkswagen Beetles connected by their four wheels. Maximiliano Siñani (b. La Paz, Bolivia, 1989) uses these vehicles to transform them into a static sculptural object posing the question what if two cars can stand in for two people in a moment of intimacy?
The Volkswagen or People’s Car surely was one of most extraordinary success stories in the history of the automobile. The Beetle began life as a pet project of Adolf Hitler, who commissioned engineer Ferdinand Porsche to design a low-cost vehicle for the German people. Production eventually began post-World War II, under the British army then occupying much of Germany. Its manufacture lasted in Germany until 1978-or 1980 for the cabriolet-but continued in Latin America, latterly in Mexico (known as Vocho), until 2003. In all, over 21 million Beetles were made, an all-time record for a single model. Beetles provides a new line of sight on the perceptive signifier of the automobile, the vehicles connected together by its four wheels that cannot go forward but must, instead, stay in the same place.
El Museo presents the artist’s first solo show in a New York museum.
