MSCHF and Lexus Unveil Surreal 'Form Cars' Sculptures in New York Pop-Up

The avant-garde collective MSCHF, renowned for its disruptive and often viral creations like the "Big Red Boots" and a "micro-micro-purse," has partnered with the luxury automaker Lexus for a striking new art installation. Titled "MOTOMORPHOSIS," the project features two collaborative car sculptures unveiled at a pop-up exhibition in New York City's Chelsea Industrial space, running from September 24th to September 26th. This collaboration sees MSCHF reinterpreting two of Lexus's electrified vehicles, the Lexus RZ450e and the Lexus RX450h+, transforming them into surreal artistic statements that aim to evoke the essence of movement rather than literal motion.

The first sculpture, "Circle Car," takes a Lexus RZ450e and contorts it into an endless loop, its nose and tail joined, creating a visual metaphor for perpetual, albeit stationary, motion. This piece challenges the conventional understanding of a car's purpose and form. Adjacent to it, "Twisted Car" presents a Lexus RX450h+ subjected to what the brand describes as "dramatic longitudinal torsion," twisting the vehicle's structure into a dynamic, sculptural form. These 'Form Cars,' as MSCHF has dubbed them, draw inspiration from a lineage of automotive art, referencing artists such as Pippa Garner, known for her "Backwards Car" and "Karmann" pieces, and Erwin Wurm, whose famously distorted and inflated car sculptures have garnered international acclaim.

Alongside these artistic reinterpretations, functional versions of the Lexus RZ450e and RX450h+ are also on display, providing a tangible contrast to their deconstructed counterparts. Lisa McQueen, Lexus's senior marketing manager, articulated the exhibition's conceptual core: "Most conversations about electrification focus on how a vehicle is powered. MOTOMORPHOSIS asks a different question: what can electricity power in our imagination?" She further elaborated that the collaboration with MSCHF provided Lexus with a unique opportunity to "take the automobile beyond its familiar form and explore movement, transformation and possibility in an entirely new way." This initiative signifies a deliberate move by Lexus to engage with contemporary art and culture, leveraging MSCHF's reputation for pushing boundaries to explore new dimensions of automotive perception and artistic expression, moving beyond the typical discourse surrounding electric vehicle technology.