Cars and Money, The Exhibition

Cars and Money, The Exhibition
Interview with Reiner Opoku
St. Moritz Art Masters (SAM) Curator, Partner at Wolfgang Roth & FineArts
By Daedrian McNaughton

New Works by David LaChapelle “Cars and Money” was presented at the Wolfgang Roth and Partners FineArt Gallery during Art Basel Miami Beach 2009. The renowned photographer challenged us to think about our obsession with materialistic things and the sudden destruction it can cause.

Ranked among the top ten most important people in photography in the world by American Photo, David LaChapelle continues to be innovative in his art and photography.

David who is known for exploring themes and issues that are thought provoking and that are relevant to our time or current economical culture. He has done it again in his paper sculptor exhibits of crashed cars and negative money.

We are constantly reminded of the drastic decline in our economy, and the new definition of luxury where excess is now criminal and luxury becomes quality and affordable. The series represents a society that was built based upon a house of cards, where there was no secure foundation by which the wealth was being supported. It was a misrepresentation of what the reality of the economy was really like, and a false sense of security. The fragile framework could no longer sustain itself therefore the collapse or crash was eminent and is represented in his work.

Reiner Opoku an international curator and contemporary art dealer,  has been a leading figure on the global art market since 1983. He has managed some of this era’s premiere avant-garde artists such as Georg Dokopil and Martin Kippenberger and has worked on projects with Julian Schnabel and Sigmar Polke. As curator, Reiner Opoku has delivered numerous exhibitions of principal artists such as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Josef Beuys as far a field as Tokyo, Prague, Vienna, Berlin and Hamburg. He was recently the curator of the prestigious St. Moritz Art Masters (SAM). The St. Moritz Arts Masters gave visitors a taste of the varied mediums of contemporary art, including paintings, sculptures, photography, video and audio installations.

Here Reiner Opoku talks with Premier Guide Miami on the Cars and Money exhibit at the Wolfgang Roth & Partners FineArt Gallery located in Miami Design District.

PGM: When the words car and money come to mind, we do not think of them as being destructive. We think about the efficiency of the car and the value of money. Why car and money for this exhibit?

RO: The two series displayed here by David LaChapelle is called Cars and Money. The exhibit with cars is a collage of crashed or mashed up cars, a symbol of the destruction of luxury. Once a car has been crashed or damaged, it no longer represents opulence or luxury.  It is now insignificant. The other is about negative currency. Once a currency becomes negative for instance a debt, it has no value, as such with the fall of wall street and the value of the dollar with that of the Euro. It is a representation of the times, what we are faced with now in our economy and every day life.

PGM: You have worked with David in 2008 in his series, “Jesus is My Homeboy.” Why have you decided to bring him back this year?

RO: We have been working with David for many years, we had a show with him last year and felt we wanted to do something with him again for Miami Basel.

PGM: At times it can be very challenging working with artists of such caliber. How was it working with David LaChapelle?

RO: As with every great artist he is very easy to work with because they have just the highest standard in quality in mind. If you accept that as a dealer and as someone working with him, it is easy to work with him. Everything that he does is made for his art or for that what he wants to produce or what he wants to do. You can be sure that you are receiving the best possible work. It may not come easy, it is all focus on the goal. The goal is to  have the best possible work.

PGM: Whose idea was it initially to show this exhibit for Art Basel?

RO: The works were shown in a museum exhibition before. The programming for us was to select these two groups. The concept was to have these two group of works in confrontation to each other. The prices vary between $30,000 and $85,000 for the pieces shown.

Cars and Money: New Works by David LaChapelle on exhibition December 1, 2009 – February 13, 2010 at Wolfgang Roth & Partners FineArt Gallery.

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