Andrew Bush's 'Vector Portraits': Still Images Of Cars And Drivers In Los Angeles

Back in 1888, when Berta Benz made the pioneering long distance trip with her husband's car, no one could imagine traffic jams or even "Carmageddons". 125 years after its invention, we know about the negative impact of the automobile. Despite this, for most people the car hasn't lost its fascination.

On the 125th anniversary of the car, several art museums are dedicating exhibitions to the automobile. One of them is the Museum Tinguely in Basel, Switzerland which currently presents the exhibition Car Fetish - I drive, therefore I am. The show features more than 160 artworks by more than 80 artists such as Giacomo Balla, Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, Arman, Roman Signer, Mel Ramos, Andrea Zittel - and Los Angeles-based artist Andrew Bush.

The museum presents a series of photographs that Andrew Bush created in the 1990s. The Vector Portraits are photographs of people in their cars, which Andrew Bush took while driving side by side at 50 to 70 mph in Los Angeles and other parts of the Southwestern United States. They show people sitting in their cars, voyeuristically observed and captured by the artist. The photographs were fascinating sociological documents - and friends of Classic Cars might also love them.

In this video, Andrew Bush tells how he came up with the idea for the Vector Portraits series, how he realized the series technically. He also talks about how the people reacted when they realized they were photographed, the selection of the motifs, and his current and future projects.

Andrew Bush was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1956. He studied photography at the Yale University in New Haven, CT. His work can be found in major collections such as the Art Institute of Chicago; the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Victoria & Albert Museum London, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

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