Andy Warhol: Cars - Business Art

Christian Gogger (Author), Renate Wiehager (Editor), Andy Warhol (Author) --- In 1986, on the 100th birthday of the automobile, the DaimlerChrysler enterprise commissioned the pop art icon Andy Warhol to do a series of 80 car pictures which were to document the history of the automobile from 1886 to the present. Using 20 selected Mercedes models - including the Daimler motor coach and the Benz patent motor wagon - 35 pictures and 12 large-format paintings were executed in 1986/87, becoming the last series produced by the artist. The large-format picture book at hand presents the works in total and, with other commissioned works, further explores the many-faceted subject of "Business Art". The works include a co- operation between Robert Longo and DaimlerChrysler that yielded a series of black-and-white portraits of Mercedes Benz models. With her signature watercolors of persons and products from the enterprise, Simone Westerwinter created a radically new form of "portrait". Mathis Neidhart is working at a dialectic approach of conveying the brand-name philosophy of DaimlerChrysler with art- specific questions. Interviews with contemporary artists such as John Armleder, Jeff Koons, Robert Longo and Sarah Morris serve to expand on the subject matter of the book.