SQUARE WHEELS
I think of this book as my comic book or graphic novel. It collects the images of twenty-two automotive Others – the cars and other wheeled vehicles that refuse to conform to the norms of American Car Culture.
Striving males, in particular, want to roll on cool wheels and thereby enjoy power, status, and (shared) identity. From the hulking Escalade to the prissy Prius to the clunker with flashy hubcaps, American cars make little speeches about who their drivers want to be.
But every dominant culture evokes a counterculture of Others: outsiders, dissidents, deviants, rejects, renegades, and ne'er-do-wells. This portfolio honors some of these outsiders – the un-cool or 'square' wheels that display plainness, out-of-date-ness, distressed color, sheer ugliness, or playful eccentricity.
Some are countercultural or green-culture protests that say "I don't give a damn about shiny heaps of metal." Others are survivals from disillusionment or poverty, saying "I'll just keep on truckin' somehow."
(To move previous/next, use keyboard arrow keys; or on pad/phone, click just inside the edge of the frame.)
I think of this book as my comic book or graphic novel. It collects the images of twenty-two automotive Others – the cars and other wheeled vehicles that refuse to conform to the norms of American Car Culture.
Striving males, in particular, want to roll on cool wheels and thereby enjoy power, status, and (shared) identity. From the hulking Escalade to the prissy Prius to the clunker with flashy hubcaps, American cars make little speeches about who their drivers want to be.
But every dominant culture evokes a counterculture of Others: outsiders, dissidents, deviants, rejects, renegades, and ne'er-do-wells. This portfolio honors some of these outsiders – the un-cool or 'square' wheels that display plainness, out-of-date-ness, distressed color, sheer ugliness, or playful eccentricity.
Some are countercultural or green-culture protests that say "I don't give a damn about shiny heaps of metal." Others are survivals from disillusionment or poverty, saying "I'll just keep on truckin' somehow."
(To move previous/next, use keyboard arrow keys; or on pad/phone, click just inside the edge of the frame.)
