Robert Clinch the Goggomobil D’Art Project
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ROBERT CLINCH THE GOGGOMOBIL D’ART PROJECT SATURDAY 25 MARCH – SATURDAY 6 MAY 2017 LAURAINE • DIGGINS • FINE • ART ROBERT CLINCH 1957 - Kindred, 2016 autopaint and two-pack on etch-primed aluminium 45 cm x 52 cm ROBERT CLINCH 1957 - Match-Race, 2016 autopaint and two-pack on etch-primed aluminium 45 cm x 52 cm ROBERT CLINCH: Objet ome time ago Robert Clinch first model paper darts suspended before the car images one by one to the body of the car was suggested to art collector and car like dancing marionettes, Clinch calculated both mentally and physically taxing. Clinch did enthusiast Jeff Brown that it would be the number required, the proportions and how not start painting until the middle of September S‘fun’ to paint the Goggomobil car. Jeff the darts could be successfully adapted and 2016 and finally completed it in February 2017. consequently bought one for that very purpose. integrated into the car’s form. The difficulty of the work was exacerbated by However, neither could have imagined the In modern car design wind tunnels are used the external configuration of the car. Although intensive labour, time and plethora of aesthetic to simulate the aerodynamic dimensions of it had been stripped of ornament and badges and technical challenges that would be involved a vehicle, whereas the car designers of the and by nature was bereft of joins and seams, to convert idea into reality. Now, some 12 1950s and ‘60s relied more on their own the curving forms, lifts and tucks of the Dart months after the project started, we witness the aesthetic judgement. Clinch’s extensive presented a challenge. In some places, Clinch gestation, maturation and birth of the new and process was similar in outcome if not method. had to paint in a reversal of his normal practice improved Goggomobil ‘D’art’. Size, proportion, density and number were to achieve the desired effect. The Goggomobil Dart is a unique story that determined by eye, with the experimentation Art cars are an important part of the cultural provides a fascinating insight into the changing continually re-aligning with his desired landscape of the 20th (and 21st) centuries. As fashions and tastes in the modern automobile aesthetic of movement and flight. a reformed ‘petrol-head’ and someone learned industry and its impact both in Australia and in modern art and design, Clinch is aware of upon the world stage. Goggomobil began life the various incantations of the art car that have in post World War II Bavaria as air-cooled, graced Australia and international stands. two-stroke, two-cylinder micro-cars. The two- These include the legendary 1970s Sandman door sedan and a sportier coupe released in panel van that featured the ubiquitous endless 1957 extended the range, but essentially the car wave spray-painted on burnt orange or lime remained a relatively inexpensive workhorse green. Far removed from these, BMW launched with a spartan interior and basic shape. its first art car in 1975. Initiated by the French Franchised to the US and Australia, the racecar driver Hervé Poulain, the BMW art Goggomobil underwent a complete overhaul. car has played host to major artists including In the Sydney workshop of the legendary Alexander Calder, Andy Warhol, Jenny Holzer car designer and retailer Bill Buckle, the and Australian indigenous artist Michael Goggomobil became the quintessential Dart, Nelson Jagamara. an even smaller, streamlined package that for Robert Clinch has expressed an appreciation Buckle signified ‘taking flight’. Between 1959 of the Jeff Koons car that was launched in 2010. and 1961, when production stopped, close to Koons’s brightly coloured work screams power, 700 units rolled off the line in Australia and KARL VON MOLLER (filmmaker) motion and bursting energy prompting him to were eagerly snapped up. D’art Project in progress, 2016 declare: ‘You can participate with it, add to it Bill Buckle’s design innovations meant that and let yourself transcend with its energy. There the Goggomobil Dart was not only faster, it “I have a problem with is a lot of power under that hood and I want to looked the part. The replacement of the steel let my ideas transcend with the car – it’s really body with lightweight moulded fibreglass, the my Goggomobil...... to connect with that power.’ (1) elimination of doors and the introduction of Goggomobil........g-o-gg-o” While the Goggomobil makes no claim on bright new colour schemes contributed to its such raw power or sheer explosive energy the overall performance and appearance. Its main - Yellow Pages advert 1992-1999 idea of working with the vehicle and making it competitor, the British-produced Sunbeam feel perpetually in transit or flight is an ethos Alpine, meant Australia was well-served by fun The detailed drawings and test plates both artists share. The synchronicity of the Dart little sports cars that reflected the values of both produced as part of the project are important name with Goggomobil and Robert Clinch’s younger men and the independent, fashionable elements. These show Clinch’s commitment art is also what distinguishes this project. The women about town. to the process and the layering of his ideas. paper dart is a motif that carries wide-ranging The sense of the Dart as a beautiful object Significantly they are strong and independent autobiographical associations and meanings in its own right - economical, sleek, taut and works in their own right. The drawings, for Clinch. He first started using the paper dart minimalist in design - inspired Robert Clinch in particular, will be familiar to followers motif in a suite of paintings entitled Flights to produce, quite literally, this objet d’art. By of Clinch’s career. Painstakingly rendered of Fancy (1985) recalling how darts in flight superimposing a squadron of his signature using chalk and conté pencils on coloured became a surrogate for the imagination of the paper plane darts on the car he achieves a sense paper, these are reminiscent of the work of child who threw them.(2) The motif persisted, of speed, grace and movement, importantly old European masters and the drawings they signifying imagination, transience, purity and ‘even when it’s standing still’. produced in their studios that formed the basis fragility. In some well-known paintings they Robert Clinch is an artist whose work requires for usually larger commissioned works. These express the isolation of working as an artist or space and time. In past centuries, artists were drawings are now as coveted as the original in Clinch’s views on the state of the environment. often commissioned by the leading families of situ paintings and sculptures. Sea-Gulls, 2000, is a tempera painting the day. In Jeff Brown, Clinch also found an The painted panels show Clinch’s love of that comes closest to the Goggomobil D’art enthusiastic and like-minded supporter for the Renaissance art; specifically, his interest in project. Darts float, hover and land subject to Goggomobil project. the muted pastel colours of Sandro Botticelli the vagaries of a coastal breeze. What looks First a workshop was needed to accommodate and the precise line and crystalline forms of to be seemingly natural has been carefully the car. The Goggomobil was driven in, Piero della Francesca. Moving from the egg orchestrated into a formal vocabulary of stripped and elevated; to become a workable, tempera, he similarly favours, to enamel paint deftly observed and delicately rendered and blank canvas. A protracted period of research and thinners, Clinch had to rethink the use arranged shapes. More recent installations and development had preceded this, which of traditional brushes and his usual painting such as Suspension of Disbelief at Art Gallery of for Clinch was an essential part of the techniques and experiment with new ways of Ballarat and Returning at Manningham Gallery, transformation of the Dart to ‘D’art’. Using colour mixing and application. Melbourne, have extended the repertoire to 60% scaled working mechanical drawings and The time-consuming task of transferring the focus on the synchronic movement of darts ROBERT CLINCH 1957 - Tag-Teams, 2016 graphite, chalk and conté pencils on blue paper 39 cm x 73 cm “Here we have flight in the (paper) darts coming together on a car, which is a dart” - Robert Clinch through architectural space. In the former, Clinch propelled visitors toward the exhibition space while in the latter he proposes a visual metaphor for a swarm or flock of darts focused on collective return. In each case, Clinch uses the darts to personify traits such as love, togetherness and harmony or conversely discord and disorder. Combine a vintage car collector, an iconic car and an accomplished realist artist equally passionate about clean lines and gutsy performance and you have the ROBERT CLINCH 1957 - makings of a perfect match. Robert Clinch’s Harmony, 2016 ‘D’art’ heralds a new and exciting chapter in graphite, chalk and conté pencils on blue paper car art. Most important of all, seeing the 44 cm x 73 cm car for the first time literally takes your breath away. Curvy, sumptuous and precise this is a Goggomobil ‘D’art’ for the ages. It conveys unbridled joy and a palpable sense of artistic freedom. Rodney James, curator and writer. Notes 1 Jeff Koons, www.artcar.bmwgroup.com 2 Robert Clinch in conversation with Julie Collett, in Robert Clinch: Fanfare for the common man, Art Gallery of Ballarat, 2013, pp.91-97. The author wishes to thank Robert Clinch for his assistance with this essay and for allowing a ‘sneak peek’. ROBERT CLINCH 1957 - ROBERT CLINCH 1957 - Father, 2016 Quartet, 2016 The Goggomobil D’art Project is the subject of a graphite and chalk pencils on blue paper graphite and chalk pencils on blue paper documentary film by Karl von Moller.