Artsology

Monaco Grand Prix: A Collision of Images

I saw a fashion ad in the New York Times the other day that grabbed my attention ... the dress that the woman was wearing (exact image from the ad, below left) appeared to be a visual combination of Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol. It was a little hard to visually read the specific imagery in the black and white newspaper ad, but my interest in the art of Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol made me want to investigate a little further, and I found the color version of the fashion photo shown below. Scroll down for more ...

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If you see my set up of Richter paintings to the right of the woman from the ad, and then the Warhol car paintings to the right of the Richters, can you see how I made this connection? Then I later found a detail image (bottom right) which shows the actual dress (designed by Albert Kriemler for Akris, I was to find out later) up close so that we can better see what it really is, which is a race car from the Monaco Grand Prix auto race.

Albert Kriemler Monaco Grand Prix dress for Akris with a resemblance to paintings by Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol

Even though we can now see that it's not exactly Richter and Warhol, it still grabs my attention for 2 reasons: one, it seems that more fashion designers are referencing art (see our blog post on Jeff Koons-inspired dresses), and two, this particular auto race, the Monaco Grand Prix, has been inspiration for a number of artists, since they have been making iconic posters for this annual race every year since the 1890's. Below are a selection of these Grand Prix posters:

8 different Monaco Grand Prix posters from over the years

In researching the "Richter/Warhol dress" above, I found that there were a couple more dresses that were designed by the same designer and shown at the same fashion show ... since these are pretty cool clothing-as-art, I thought I'd include them here below. These are also Monaco Grand Prix-inspired; I especially like the top one showing the hairpin turn with the woman watching from the balcony.

Monaco Grand Prix dresses