{"id":13251,"date":"2022-11-21T14:15:01","date_gmt":"2022-11-21T21:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/?p=13251"},"modified":"2023-03-14T10:22:39","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T17:22:39","slug":"last-generation-attacks-andy-warhol-bmw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/last-generation-attacks-andy-warhol-bmw.html","title":{"rendered":"Last Generation attacks Andy Warhol BMW"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Nov. 18, 2022, eleven members of the Italian eco-extremist group Ultima Generazione (Last Generation), invaded the Fabbrica del Vapore (Factory of Steam) art center in Milan, Italy to disrupt the exhibition Andy Warhol: The Advertising of Form<\/em>. In particular, the vandals attacked a BMW M1 race car that Warhol painted<\/a> in 1979.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Last Generation vandals dump flour on Warhol BMW, as art center guard in black attempts to stop them. Photo: Ultima Generazione.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The eco-vandals outnumbered and overtook the museum guards, and dumped 17 pounds of flour on the BMW<\/a>. They also threw paint-filled balloons on the museum floor, after which a number of them sat down around the BMW to harangue art lovers with apocalyptic rants about the end of the world.<\/p>\n

Unbelievably, after covering the car, floor, museum staff and art lovers in thick clouds of white flour, the fools of Last Generation attempted to glue their hands to the BMW as well as the concrete floor; an impossible task considering everything was covered with finely milled powder.<\/p>\n

Sheesh, talk about incompetence\u2014and these are the people who think they\u2019re going to save the world. Museum guards literally dragged the blockheads out of the gallery and turned five of them over to the police. The authorities identified the culprits, but at the time of this writing there was no word on charges. The assault on Fabbrica del Vapore was the third vandalism attack mounted by Last Generation against an art institution.<\/p>\n

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Art center guard drags off vandal wearing \u201c858 days left\u201d T-shirt. Photo: Ultima Generazione.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the vandals dragged out of the gallery wore a T-shirt reading: \u201cUltima Generazione, We Have 858 Days Left.\u201d That number of doom comes from environmental \u201cstudies\u201d that assert we only have 858 days left to reduce \u201ccarbon emissions,\u201d otherwise there will be planetary climate collapse.<\/p>\n

Some readers of this blog may be too young to remember the legions of fanatics that prophesized the world would come to an end on Jan. 1, 2000, or what was popularly known as Y2K<\/a> (Year 2000). It would be lights out for civilization\u2014planes would fall from the sky, electricity and water systems would fail along with banking and food delivery. Except the end never came. Last Generation and all the other eco-zealot fundamentalists, are just the latest crop of doomsayers.<\/p>\n

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Proud of their temper tantrum, Last Generation zealots hold a \u201csit-in\u201d around the vandalized BMW. Photo: Ultima Generazione.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The producer of the show, Stefano Lacagnina, said the vandals paid for entrance tickets, and had smuggled the bags of all-purpose flour into the museum by hiding them in their clothes. He commented on the vandalized car: \u201cIt is an important piece, which for the first time was exhibited and has great value\u2014about 10 million. Now we don\u2019t know what to do.” The exhibition closed temporarily in order to clean up the tremendous mess. The Ultima Generazione goons released a statement that in part read:<\/p>\n

“8Kg of flour on the BMW painted by Andy Warhol. Works of art have been targeted in order to highlight the hypocrisy of our society’s values: do we really get outraged at the simulation of damage to works of art while the ongoing objective destruction of works of nature, ecosystems and our own lives leaves us indifferent?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Deputy Prime Minister of Italy, Matteo Salvini, condemned the vandals of Ultima Generazione; he said on Twitter: \u201cLet them pay the damages and spend some time where they deserve.\u201d The cultural engagement department of the German car manufacturer Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW), also released a statement:<\/p>\n

\u201cArt is as priceless as it is untouchable. It belongs to all of humanity and reflects the great achievements of which each of us is capable. Andy Warhol\u2019s 1979 Art Car is a unique masterpiece and we have no sympathy for a violent attack on the artist\u2019s work defaced for many decades.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In 1975 BMW worked with French race car driver Herv\u00e9 Poulain in starting The BMW Art Car Project<\/em>. That year Alexander Calder painted the first car for Poulain; who drove it in the 24 Hours of Le Mans<\/em>\u2014Grand Prix of Speed and Endurance<\/em><\/a> race in Le Mans, France. Since then 20 artists have been commissioned to paint BMWs, including Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Ernst Fuchs, Robert Rauschenberg, David Hockney, and Jeff Koons. Artists picked for the BMW Art Car Project are selected by a panel of international judges. Andy Warhol would paint his BMW in 1979.<\/p>\n

Most of the artists associated with the BMW Art Car Project<\/em> are not my cup of tea, save for Ernst Fuchs<\/a> (1930-2015), a Viennese artist who founded the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism. I insist that his brand of neo-surrealism was a precursor to the psychedelic aesthetic of the mid-1960s. As for Jeff Koons, he should be made to paint car bodies for the rest of life. But my liking or disliking an artist is not pertinent here, what is relevant is that barbarians can\u2019t be allowed to rampage through museums and vandalize artworks.<\/p>\n

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BMW M1 Race Car. Painted by Andy Warhol in 1979.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Warhol used 13 pounds of paint to cover his BMW canvas; he supposedly painted the vehicle in 28 minutes. The Warhol car participated in the 1979 Le Mans 24-hour race, after which it was placed in a museum. BMW maintains a website exhibit of their BMW canvases titled: Wild at Art: The History of the BMV Art Cars<\/em><\/a>. Thomas Girst, who has directed the Art Cars project since 2004, made a statement about the project:<\/p>\n

“In the beginning the cars were raced. There wasn’t much of a public relations effort around them. Since then, some of the Art Cars have been used in advertisements to show that BMW is a player in the arts. With the Eliason work<\/a>, part of what we are doing is raising awareness of alternative and renewable energy sources.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh sure… I\u2019m certain Ultima Generazione will be so impressed.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no doubt the luddites of Ultima Generazione targeted Warhol\u2019s BMW because they see it as an evil symbol of car culture and the wicked petroleum industry they revile. What\u2019s puzzling about this particular infantile \u201cprotest\u201d was their dumping flour on the car. Since eco-vandals kvetch about \u201cclimate collapse\u201d being the cause of starvation and mass death, you\u2019d think they might have concluded that baking loaves of bread would be a more productive endeavor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Nov. 18, 2022, eleven members of the Italian eco-extremist group Ultima Generazione (Last Generation), invaded the Fabbrica del Vapore (Factory of Steam) art center in Milan, Italy to disrupt the exhibition Andy Warhol: The Advertising of Form. In particular, the vandals attacked a BMW M1 race car that Warhol painted in 1979. The eco-vandals outnumbered and overtook the museum…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-museums","category-war-on-art"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}