DeLorean Progress Report
Exhibition by Sean Lynch
Lecture at the Stadelschule, Monday, May 10th, 7pm
Opening at Other Frankfurter Kunstverein, Monday, May 10th, 9pm
The exhibition takes as a starting point the bankruptcy and subsequent aftermath of the DeLorean car factory, which operated in Dunmurry, outside Belfast, in the early 1980s.
The company's founder, John DeLorean, was arrested in October 1982 for alleged possession of $16 million dollars of cocaine at Los Angeles airport. This, coupled with technical flaws during car production and poor sales in the United States all contributed to bankruptcy and closure of the factory after less than two years of operation. Despite such obstacles, the DMC-12 car was considered valuable for its unusual design incorporating gull wing doors and a stainless steel body, and later became a popular icon of the 1980s, functioning as a time machine in the movie Back To The Future.
Läpple, a German company with a factory in Carlow, Ireland, produced the tooling to stamp out the body of the car, essentially the formgivers that gave DeLorean its famous profile. These large cast iron sections were sold off and dispersed to scrapyards in 1984, and it was rumoured that they was purchased by fishermen to be used as anchors. Eventually, Lynch located their remains in an inlet off the Atlantic Ocean in 2009. A photograph at the Other Space details the scene at 18 metres below the water, on the seabed at 53.29938N & 9.76344W. There, an ecosystem has grown around, over and under the metal. Seaweed forms a kind of patina over its surface while several species of crabs (Cancer pagurus, Liocarcinus puber, Carcinus maenas) now reside in various casting cavities and hollow spaces of the tooling. Occasional shapes appear that seem somewhat similar to the shape of the car, but now with crustaceans appearing as the passengers.
Documentation and a sculpture detailing ongoing work by Lynch to produce sections of a DMC-12 by handmade rather than industrial means also features.
Sean Lynch (born 1978, Kerry) lives and works in Berlin and Dublin. He attended the Stadelschule between 2005-7. Solo exhibitions include the Gallery of Photography, Dublin, Heaven's Full, London and Limerick City Gallery of Art. His work currently features in Lost and Found, a group exhibition at neugierriemschneider, Berlin, through to May 29. He is also author, editor and publisher of several books and pamphlets that focus on Irish art and architecture, and is represented by the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery in Dublin.
This exhibition receives support from Culture Ireland.
OTHER Frankfurter Kunstverein. B- Ebene Dom / Römer, bei der Rolltreppe Richtung Dom.
