Joshua Vides Transforms Petersen Museum into a Monochromatic Drawn Garage
Artist Joshua Vides has masterfully converted a section of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles into an immersive, monochromatic art installation. Titled "Flat Out: The Art of Joshua Vides," this unique exhibition presents a gallery of vehicles and garage equipment reimagined as a large-scale, hand-drawn illustration. Through his distinctive black-and-white linework, Vides transforms tangible objects into two-dimensional sketches, inviting visitors to experience car culture from an entirely new perspective. This innovative display blurs the boundaries between reality and artistic representation, making the familiar automotive world appear as if lifted from a comic book page.
Vides' exhibition, "Flat Out," is showcased within the Armand Hammer Foundation Gallery. The display encompasses five meticulously hand-painted automobiles, alongside stacks of tires, fuel pumps, wall graphics, and oversized garage signage. Each element is meticulously detailed with Vides' characteristic crisp, monochrome lines, giving the entire space the appearance of a dynamic, uncolored drawing. Upon entering, one might initially perceive it as a classic auto body shop, stripped of its vibrant hues. An overhead sign for "Vides Auto Body", checkered flags adorning the ceiling, and a prominent "NO PARKING" graphic on the wall reinforce this illusion. The installation is slated to be open to the public until July 5, 2027.
This project is a continuation of Vides' ongoing artistic series, which he refers to as "Reality to Idea." His methodology is straightforward yet yields a captivating visual impact: real-world objects are coated in white, then meticulously outlined with bold black lines that accentuate their edges, shadows, seams, and surface contours. This technique allows the physical presence of the objects to remain intact while simultaneously imbuing them with the optical quality of a sketch, oscillating between a tangible showroom piece and a hand-drawn image. At the Petersen Museum, Vides expanded this concept beyond individual items to encompass the entire environment, dedicating nine days to hand-paint the vehicles, gallery walls, and various garage components, effectively crafting a cohesive monochrome automotive tableau.
Throughout the "Flat Out" exhibition, the vehicles, despite their visually flattened surfaces, retain their inherent physical presence. A Ferrari, for instance, is depicted from behind, its taillights, vents, license plate, and rear window reduced to prominent, thick outlines. Similarly, a Mercedes positioned beneath the stark "NO PARKING" typography features its grille and bodywork sharply defined by the same hand-painted linework applied to the adjacent pumps and tires. Elsewhere, a sleek low-slung coupe captures attention through overlapping foreground silhouettes, creating the impression that the entire room has been transformed into a storyboard frame. The reflective nature of the gallery floor further enhances this illusion, with black lines mirrored beneath the cars and white body panels seemingly dissolving into the pale ground. Oversized borders on the walls contribute to the perception of a flattened backdrop, while framed window graphics ingeniously mimic the diagonal marks of glass reflections. Even the stacks of tires feature repetitive tread marks, elevating a utilitarian garage item into a distinct patterned element within the artistic composition.
The success of this installation stems from its intelligent deployment of the visual lexicon of car culture, treating the vehicles not as remote symbols, but as integral parts of an everyday environment. Vides draws inspiration from the common spaces surrounding automobiles – the repair bay, the body shop, the fuel pump, the tire mound – and elevates these details to the same artistic prominence as the cars themselves. The garage, with its own unique signage, boundaries, playful elements, and visual rhythm, becomes an essential component of the artwork. Within the broader collection of the Petersen Museum, "Flat Out" offers an alternative perspective on automotive design. Rather than solely emphasizing immaculate finishes, rarity, or performance, the exhibition prompts viewers to consider the outcome when a vehicle's surface is manually reinterpreted through art. Body lines, headlights, vents, and spoilers are transformed into abstract marks. The car's physical form endures, yet its identity is now intricately tied to the act of drawing, collective memory, and the viewer's journey through the exhibition space.