The beauty of a car crash- 'deep' and 'meaningful' is back

I paid a visit to the Saatchi Gallery at the weekend. I had wanted to go ever since I saw the fascinating write-ups for Dirk Skrber's Car Crash installation. The artist's comments on the piece explained perfectly why he was displaying the aftermath of the collision of two cars; "If you pass an accident and see a car like this, it's occupied by tragic thoughts for the people that would be involved, and you might see blood. This work gives you an opportunity to see the things like in a dream. It's clean and polished and abstract." 


The thing with car accidents, is that we as humans feel a moral obligation to not look as we drive past a collision on the motorway for example. But secretly, I think there's definitely, on my part anyway, a niggling urge to stare and have a good old look at something is so often the subject of horror. The point of impact is over so suddenly, that we never really have the chance to examine and ponder such an unimaginable event. Skrber has taken this moment and captured it, putting it in a space for the public to look at without any sense of guilt for as long as they so wish- all in the name of art. 


The cars are real, bought by the artist with the intention of crashing them in a vehicle-testing facility in Ohio

I always enjoy walking around the Saatchi Gallery, more so than any other space, as I like the thoughts that conceptual art, particularly Saatchi's choices provoke. Whether or not something can be classed as art can be mulled over as you read the accompanying explanations behind the pieces. Because the cars are bent and twisted around a pole, the angles and position gives one the sense that the cars have been transported from the point of impact to the gallery, as the write up explains 'It is as if they have been caught, mid-flight, through an invisible centripetal speedway, and are being held in a state of unreal suspension and impersonal destruction, as if in an anxious automotive purgatory.' The cars have been paused and displayed and therefore have no past or future, giving the work a metaphysical quality.


More highlights of the exhibition

The Healers (2008) by David Altmejd 

The above was fascinating to look at, if not a little terrifying. David Altmejd makes large scale sculptures of anthropomorphic figures cast in a state of metamorphosis. The healers shows a kind of orgy where the players appear sexually charged in a state of physical agony. 

Beethoven's Trumpet (2007) John Baldessari

The Shooting lesson (2007) by Folkert de Jong

Finally, no trip to the Saatchi Gallery would be complete without a visit to the lower ground floor where the the work of Richard Wilson still lives, as the only permanent piece in the gallery. This contemporary masterpiece, viewed from a platform is a site of epic illusion. When looking into the vast space, you would be forgiven for thinking you were looking into a deep box like space. However, 20:50 is a room entirely flooded with recycled engine oil. The oil is so think and black that it mirrors everything in the space, creating the illusion that the room is much deeper than in reality. 

20:50 (1987) by Richard Wilson