Bertrand Lavier is a French conceptual artist, painter and sculptor who is best known for his work in the 1980s and 1990s when he transformed everyday objects such as refrigerators, tables, mirrors, stop signs, pianos, and furniture into humorous readymade artworks by covering them with an impasto layer of paint. With each of Lavier’s large brushstrokes of colourful acrylic paint, these industrial objects changed their meaning – from bland consumer goods barely considered in our daily lives, to prescious objects of art, exhibited in museums and traded by gallerists for multiples of their original costs. In their sticky aesthetics, Bertrand Lavier’s readymades ridiculed both – the global consumerism of the Reagan era and the fetishization of the art world. 

Knowing the artists vita, it might not have come as a surprise that Bertrand Lavier chose a similar approach when he was commissioned to turn a Ferrari 365 GT4 2+2 into an art car. Covered in bold blue acrylic paint applied in broad strokes all across the Pininfarina body, the wheels, windows right down to the car’s tiniest details, the Ferrari resembles an one of these elaborate, naturalistic wedding cakes which have been trending all over social media recently. Is it cake? Well, we strongly discourage you from trying – even if the Larusmiani boutique in the heart of Milan, where the art car from the collection of Pierre Marnier Lapostolle Samon is currently on display, sells some of the finest Panettone knives handmade by the famous Lorenzi craftsmen. 

On another note, Bertrand Lavier has created another mesmerizing art car in the form of a badly crashed Ferrari 308 GT4 Dino which was recently on display at the Collection Pinault in Paris. Naturally, and corresponding with the logic so humorously demonstrated by the artist himself, both Ferraris have most likely quadrupled in value by making it impossible to take them for a drive. 

Photos: Andrea Luzardi