Autoconcanción III, 2016

In Autoconcanción III, a scaffold-like metal armature juts up from a car bench seat, elevating a wooden planter within which the artist placed living botanical specimens native to Southern California (where the sculpture was created).

A transistor radio dangling from lace, thong underwear is tuned to a local station broadcasting in a variety of languages. The inclusion of a woman’s undergarment alludes to Cruzvillegas’s experiences of adolescent lovemaking and sexual experimentation in the back seats of cars. Indeed, the sculptures in his Autoconcanción series affix organic and inorganic materials to the back seats of car models he or his family previously owned, including a Fiat 500, Volkswagen Beetle, and Ford Galaxy, for example. The series title developed from Cruzvillegas’s previous body of work, Autoconstrucción, meaning “self-construction,” and is a play on words describing each sculpture as a “car with song.”