Lot 1517: TETSUYA NAKAMURA

TETSUYA NAKAMURA
(B. 1968)
Replica Custom Intimidator
polyurethane paint and aluminium foil on FRP sculpture
450 x 250 x 130 cm. (177 1/8 x 98 1/2 x 51 1/8 in.)
Executed in 2001

Tokyo, Japan, Rice Gallery by G2, Speed King, June, 2001.
Seoul, Korea, Sangsangmadang Cultural Planet, SPEED PARTY Tetsuya Nakamura Solo Exhibition, 23 November, 2007-27 January, 2008.
Busan, Korea, Busan Biennale 2008, Busan Biennale 2008: Contemporary Art Exhibition: Expenditure, 6 September-15 November, 2008.

BT Magazine, New Visions in Contemporary Japanese Art 2004, Vol. 56, No. 848, October Issue, Tokyo, Japan, 2004 (illustrated, pp. 163-164).
Gallery Sangsangmadang, SPEED PARTY Tetsuya Nakamura Solo Exhibition, exh. cat., Seoul, Korea, 2007 (illustrated, p. 40).
Busan Biennale,Ban Biennale 2008: Contemporary Art Exhibition: Expenditure, Busan, Korea, 2008 (illustrated, p. 273).

As a society, we are consumed with the idea of traveling and accomplishing things at unfathomable speed. This idea is reinforced by Tetsuya Nakamura's use of polyurethane paint, made to endure weathering, eternally sleek and polished. Nakamura incorporates tangible and intangible elements into a single creation, teasing our desire to push the limitations of speed and fire. Science has dictated their behavioral traits and functions yet we know they possess an insuppressible power when pushed. Nakamura poignantly suggests how our attempt to become the most scientifically and technologically advanced generation, society creates 'scientific' instruments like the thrilling land speed test cars to prove technology can facilitate man to surpass the speed of sound.

Nakamura addresses this desire not only in the automobile shape of his work, replicating these machines but also in the decor, by rendering modern metallic flame-shaped patterns along the body of Replica Custom Intimidator (Lot 1517), igniting a passion to push both the car and the flames to the brink of combustion. Ironically, the sharp pattern and fire we imagine blasting out the five exhaust pipes contrasts the charcoal black with the red lined silver which delivers a cool, foreboding effect on the viewer. The structure and finish is beautifully slick, a powerful representation of two forces equally constructive and destructive in nature. The link between fine art and technological advances is unbreakable in this era and the very existence of Nakamura's works indeed facilitates the surreal conceptions and possible materializations of a supersonic future.