Beetles Various Artist
Since its design as a utilitarian "people's car," the Volkswagen Beetle has undergone radical transformations in the global imagination and has subverted its industrial origins to become a universal symbol of freedom, individuality, and artistic reinvention. Its ascent to icon status began in the 1960s, especially towards the end of the Vietnam war. The "Bug" as a cultural phenomena became a canvas for a generation rejecting post WW2 consumerism and the imperialist endeavors in Vietnam to resonate with counter culture. Its significance was not exclusive to counter culture. In popular culture notably through Disney’s film, Herbie the Love Bug, 1968 the car was anthropomorphized with a voice and personality.
A famous scene from Disney's 1968 classic film The Love Bug features Herbie, the pearl-white 1963 Volkswagen Beetle with a mind of its own, driving by itself, performing stunts, and racing past rival cars.
In the U.S., the minimalist and self-deprecating "Think Small" and “Lemon” advertising campaigns by Doyle Dane Bernbach revolutionized marketing to embrace the car’s unconventional look, modesty, and simplicity. The marketing and the cultural phenomenon of the Beetle combined in a way that made it ripe for Andy Warhol to reproduce while also aligning with his artistic philosophy concerned with the transformation of mass-produced things into symbols of identity, irony, and modern consumerism alongside the uniformity of everyday items like Campbell's Soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles. The notion that consumption was a kind of perverted democratization of culture also attracted Warhol to the Beetle.
The Beetle was also massively influential in Mexican culture. The car is lovingly referred to as Vocho, a combination of Volkswagen and bicho, bug in Spanish.
In 1964, Volkswagen opened a plant in Puebla, Mexico. The employees of this factory became fascinated with the work of a blacksmith named Rafael Esparza-Prieto, known for constructing intricate, curlicued wrought iron Beetles. Esparza-Prieto was later commissioned to create 22 more of his drivable sculptures, which are still extremely sought after amongst Volkswagen enthusiasts today.
The last classic Beetle rolled off the production line in 2003 at that very same factory in Puebla. By this point, Germany had stopped producing the car for decades. Nonetheless, the Beetle lives on in the work of many contemporary Mexican artists. El Vochol, a Volkswagen Beetle decorated in about 2 million colorful Huichol beads, exemplifies the assimilation of the car into Mexican culture. The artwork was made by a group of Huichol artisans led by Francisco Bautista.
Other contemporary artists have utilized the car's form, its icon status and its position in popular culture and counter culture to explore themes of consumer society, globalization, and human memory. In some respects it has transcended itself as a subject of art to become a medium of many expressions.
In 1974, Chris Burden famously nailed himself to a Beetle for his performance piece Trans-Fixed,. By merging himself with a car for his own crucifixion, the performance symbolized the mass-produced machine as an icon of modern, mechanized society.
In his seminal 2002 piece Cosmogonía doméstica, artist Damián Ortega suspended a disassembled Beetle from the ceiling similar to the way in which machines are displayed in their “exploded view” to expose the anatomy of a thing and make its point of view useful to anyone who wants to understand the machine or repair it themselves. In the do-it-yourself spirit of 1960’s counterculture (think Whole Earth Catalog) artist colleague and friend of Robert Crumb, Peter Aschwanden took this further with his 1968 illustration art for a book titled “How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive; A Manual of Step-By-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot” published together with John Muir.
In 1953, Peter Keetman photographed the production line of the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg, creating a compelling mixture between creative and documentary work. His photographs occasionally abstract the subject, focusing on close-up shots of Beetle parts. Other times, he elevates the ordinary assembly line into a work of art, highlighting the vastness and complexity of the Wolfsburg plant.
The Indonesian sculptor Ichwan Noor reimagines the Beetle compressed into the sphere. His Beetle Sphere forces viewers to confront an industrial product known for its functionality and its iconic shape, transformed to comment on the pressure of human commercialization. Conversely, Christo wrapped a beetle with the idea that its indelible form and recognizability can not be removed.
Robert Bechtle’s painting Mississippi Street Intersection, 2007 reveals a fragment of a beetle and typifies a segment of the San Francisco cityscape. Anyone who will recognize one will recognize the other.
List of Artworks:
1) Margarita Cabrera, Vocho, 2004, Vinyl, batting, thread, and car parts 60 × 72 × 156 inches (152.4 × 182.9 × 396.2 cm)
2) Sérgio Romagnolo, Fusca Grande, 2003, molded plastic, 62.99 x 62.99 x 157.48 inches (160 × 160 × 400 cm).
3) Betsabeé Romero, Auto-Construido, 2000, Mixed media. 60 × 72 × 156 in. (152.4 × 182.9 × 396.2 cm)
4) Priscilla Dobler Dzul, El Volkswagen, 2020, birch plywood, paint and paracord, 60 × 140 × 60 inches (152.4 x 355.6 x 152.4 cm). Photo credit Form and Concept Gallery.
5) Rafael Esparza-Prieto, Wrought Iron, wrought iron on functional 1970 VW Beetle chassis, c. 1970, 59.05 x 61.02 x 159.84 inches (150 × 155 × 406 cm).
6) Francisco and Xena Bautista, El Vochol, 2010, Huichol beading on VW Beetle. 60 × 72 × 156 inches (152.4 × 182.9 × 396.2 cm).
7) Andy Warhol, Volkswagen, 1985 Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas. 22 × 22 inches (55.9 × 55.9 cm).
8) Erwin Wurm – Hot Dog Bus, 2018, VW T2b and mixed media, 86.6 × 98.4 × 216.5 inches (220 × 250 ×550 cm). Photo: Liz Ligon/Public Art Fund
9) Robert Bechtle, Mississippi Street Intersection, 2007, color softground etching with aquatint on wove Somerset paper, 26 3/8 × 32 5/8 inches (66.99 × 82.87 cm).
10) Pierre Jahan, Photo Collage, Volkswagen, c. 1960, gelatin silver print, 8 1/2 x 12 inches (21.59 x 30.48 cm)
11) Ichwan Noor, Beetle Sphere, 2013, aluminium, polyester, auto paint, and parts from a 1953 VW Beetle, 70 7/8 × 70 7/8 × 70 7/8 inches (180 × 180 × 180 cm).
12) Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon, 1963–2014, tarpaulin with grommets, rope, and 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon, 59 × 160 × 60⅝ inches (150 × 406.4 × 154 cm).
13) Damian Ortega, Cosmic Thing, 2002, disassembled Volkswagen Beetle '89, metal wires, threaded bars, and plexiglass, 265 × 276 × 296 inches (673.1 × 701 × 751.8 cm).
14) Chris Burden, Trans-Fixed, 1974, performance and documentary photographs.
15) Jason deCaires Taylor, Anthropocene, c. 2009–2010, marine cement cast of VW Beetle, 118.11 x 70.86 x 78.74 inches (300 × 180 × 200 cm).
16) Peter Keetman, Volkswagen Factory series, 1953, gelatin silver print, varying dimensions.
17) Peter Aschwanden, Illustrations for the publication How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive, A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot, by John Muir & Tosh Gregg, Published by John Muir Publications, Santa Fe New Mexico. 1969.
18) Jarbas Lopes, Troca-Troca (Switch-Switch), 2002, three Beetles with connected sound systems, and body parts exchanged, varying dimensions.
19) Michael Murray, VW Beetle, 2022, digital mixed media, 28 × 28 inches (71.12 × 71.12 cm).
20) Salvador Dali, Grassy Beetle , circa 1970. Mixed media, 118.11 x 70.86 x 78.74 inches (300 × 180 × 200 cm).
Peter Keetman, Volkswagen Factory series, 1953, gelatin silver print, varying dimensions.
Peter Aschwanden, Illustrations for the publication How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive, A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot, by John Muir & Tosh Gregg, Published by John Muir Publications, Santa Fe New Mexico. 1969.
Michael Murray, VW Beetle, 2022, digital mixed media, 28 × 28 inches (71.12 × 71.12 cm).
Salvador Dali, Grassy Beetle, 1970. Mixed media.
Jason deCaires Taylor, Anthropocene, c. 2009–2010, marine cement cast of VW Beetle, 118.11 x 70.86 x 78.74 inches (300 × 180 × 200 cm).
Andy Warhol, Volkswagen, 1985, Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas
Priscilla Dobler Dzul, El Volkswagen, 2020, birch plywood, paint and paracord, 60 × 140 × 60 inches (152.4 x 355.6 x 152.4 cm). Photo credit Form and Concept Gallery.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon, 1963–2014, tarpaulin with grommets, rope, and 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon, 59 × 160 × 60⅝ inches (150 × 406.4 × 154 cm).
Damian Ortega, Cosmic Thing, 2002, disassembled Volkswagen Beetle '89, metal wires, threaded bars, and plexiglass, 265 × 276 × 296 inches (673.1 × 701 × 751.8 cm).
Francisco and Xena Bautista, El Vochol, 2010, Huichol beading on VW Beetle. 60 × 72 × 156 inches (152.4 × 182.9 × 396.2 cm).
Chris Burden, Trans-Fixed, 1974, performance and documentary photographs.
Betsabeé Romero, Auto-construido, 2000. Color print on Kodak Professional Digital Paper mounted on aluminium26 4/5 × 39 9/10 in | 68.1 × 101.4 cm
Erwin Wurm – Hot Dog Bus, 2018, VW T2b and mixed media, 220 x 250 x 550 cm (86.6 x 98.4 x 216.5 in.), photo: Liz Ligon/Public Art Fund.