Eric Fischl Talks about ‘Road Rage’ At The Church

On Sunday, August 8, at 11 a.m. The Church artist residency, exhibition space and creative center in Sag Harbor, will host artist and founder Eric Fischl talking about the summer exhibition “Road Rage,” which he curated with The Church’s executive director, Sara Cochran.

The subject of cars and art has long been an interest for Fischl ever since he discovered a 1917 painting by Henri Matisse called “The Windshield” in the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. It depicts a landscape from the position of someone seated inside a car and Fischl realized that this was a radical departure from previous imagery and one that marked the rise of the automobile and a shift in human perception as technology became part of our lives.

The show at The Church brings together the works of 23 artists. Their paintings, photographs, sculptures, drawings and an animated film range in time from the 1960s to the present. Highlights include Kristen Morgin’s exquisite model of James Dean’s wrecked 1955 Porsche 5500 Spyder in unfired clay, Henry Taylor’s haunting painting of the gaze of a stranger from a passing car, John Chamberlain's gesturally expressive sculpture made from crushed car steel, Cindy Sherman’s “Untitled” film still of a girl hitchhiking, Gregory Crewdson’s photographic tableau of cars abandoned in an overgrown back lot, Sylvie Fleury’s cast stainless steel Ford Cosworth engine, Richard Prince’s fiberglass car hood, Liz Cohen’s pin-up photograph of her posing on the hybridized vehicle she constructed from an East German Trabant and a Chevrolet El Camino and Justin Favela’s lowrider ’64 Chevy Impala made in piñata style.

“The wonderful work and brilliant artistry in ‘Road Rage’ is disarming, attractive, funny, and dynamic,” Fischl said. “Anyone who has been in a car, wanted a car, made out in a car, hated a car or lives for cars is going to be blown away by the expressive wealth of work in this show.”

The Church is at 48 Madison Street, Sag Harbor. For more information visit sagharborchurch.org.