Maccarone, New York Private Collection, Europe Acquired from the above by the present owner
Catalogue Essay
"America's built on violence...it's all manifest destiny; it's totally brutal." Nate Lowman
Nate Lowman’s White Escalade, 2005 is from his seminal bullet hole series. The image is re-appropriated from the adhesive stickers sold at American gas stations; these trompe l’oeil decals, applied directly to cars give the illusion of grittiness, of an automobile which has been shot up in a high speed chase. Lowman has co-opted this symbol of violence and rebellion and isolated it as his own graphic, pop art logo. White Escalade, 2005 embodies Lowman’s digestion of the American obsession with violence and the ever-evolving fascination with street and gang violence. He explains that this phenomenon is borne from our cultural inability to communicate with one another, commenting, “We can't communicate with each other- we can fight, we can kill, we can do those things well.” (Nate Lowman, Interview Magazine, 2009) Gallerist Michele Maccarone refers to Lowman’s practice as a survey into the “history of American violence,” exposing the dark underside of the American dream. (Jacob Bernstein, Why Isn’t This Man Smiling, The New York Times, December 26, 2012) Lowman’s fascination with artistic emblems of Americana has brought him to the forefront of contemporary art field and the present lot, White Escalade, 2005, represents one of his finest artistic achievements.
