“My idea was to make a work to provoke Elon Musk,” says Mexican artist Chavis Marmol about his creation of a particular genre: a $40,000 Tesla electric car crushed by an enormous pre-Hispanic-inspired head on display right in the center of Mexico City.
A 42-year-old sculptor, Mármol (marble in Spanish) has never owned a car himself and travels by bicycle. The sculptor unloaded the nine-ton effigy using a crane onto a blue Tesla 3, one of the models manufactured by the American multimillionaire’s company.
Addressing Musk in a mocking tone, the Mexican explains the meaning of his artistic approach: “Look what I’m doing with your damn car with this wonderful head, which is bigger than you and the rampant technologies,” says the The artist contacted by AFP in Spain, where he is participating in an exhibition.
His sculpture is inspired by the colossal heads left by the Olmecs, the oldest culture in what is now Mexico dating back 3,000 years.
Remains of Olmec culture can be found in the southeast of the country. An exhibition on the Olmecs was organized in Paris in 2021.
The work is installed in the fashionable Roma district, right in the city center. Just a year ago, Musk announced the construction of a “megafactory” in Monterrey, the northern industrial capital.
Artistic dream
The installation, described by some critics as “surreal” or worthy of the intervention of an “extra-terrestrial”, is hosted by Colima 71, an establishment halfway between a classic hotel and an art center.
A video shows the moment when the head gradually crushes the roof of the car. The batteries have been removed to avoid any incident.
The first challenge was buying the car, which costs $40,000 on the used market. The name of the patron who made the work possible is kept secret.
The next challenge was finding the stone. With an initial weight of 12 tons, it only weighs nine tons after the artist carved out the skull, the enormous eyes and the thick lips.
The artistic director of Colima 71, Margarita Ongay, says she “fell in love with the work” of the artist. “What do I feel when I see this? What does Tesla mean to me? What does it mean to install a Tesla factory in Monterrey? What does Musk inspire us? she asks herself.
Provocative, the sculptor claims to have nothing to do with seeing $40,000 go up in smoke because “it wasn’t my money.” “That’s the wonderful side of art, you can allow yourself to do these enormities.”
In Mexico, “VIP” art (Video, installation, performance) is denounced as an imposture by critic Avelina Lésper, who published in 2022 an essay against “the fraud of contemporary art”.
VIP art is a “fallacious art supported by mediocrity, economic speculation and favoritism,” she attacks.
“If a work of art touches you enough to feel or think, I believe it serves its purpose, and there are not many questions about price or cost,” Ongay says of potential criticisms against Mármol’s work.
The idea is obviously that the provocative image of the crushed Tesla reaches Elon Musk. “It would be incredible for him to see his car” in this state, smiles the artistic director.
