In 1986, on the 100th birthday of the automobile, the Daimler enterprise commissioned the pop art icon Andy Warhol to do a series of 80 car pictures which were to document the history of the automobile from 1886 to the present. Using 20 selected Mercedes models – including the Daimler motor coach and the Benz patent motor wagon – 35 pictures and 12 large-format paintings were executed in 1986/87, becoming the last series produced by the artist. The large-format picture book at hand presents the works in total and, with other commissioned works, further explores the many-faceted subject of “Business Art”. The works include a co- operation between Robert Longo and Daimler that yielded a series of black-and-white portraits of Mercedes Benz models. With her signature watercolors of persons and products from the enterprise, Simone Westerwinter created a radically new form of “portrait”. Mathis Neidhart is working at a dialectic approach of conveying the brand-name philosophy of Daimler with art- specific questions. Interviews with contemporary artists such as John Armleder, Jeff Koons, Robert Longo and Sarah Morris serve to expand on the subject matter of the book.
With texts by Christian Goegger, Friederike Nymphus, Tilman Osterwold et al.
ISBN: 978-3-7757-1264-4
The book is out of print.
