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La Ford T

In order to install his Model T Ford on the first floor of MAMCO, Xavier Veilhan (1963, Lyon) designed a simplified working model, taking advantage of both the fact that the vehicle could be disassembled and the temporal and political connotations of the assembly line. The car was presented as the result of a process that the viewers reconstructed in their mind as they wound their way around stage risers occupying the exhibition space. Veilhan had been invited by the FRAC Poitou-­Charentes [a contemporary art institution in France] to design an artist’s program for a technical high school. His solution was to have the students use artisanal methods to rebuild the historic vehicle made on the first industrial assembly lines. The Model T was one of the earliest products that applied Taylorism to the capitalist model, thereby reducing the expense and mechanical steps of production, as well as having a sociopolitical impact. For the artist, entrusting students headed for careers in industrial jobs with the manufacture of all the car’s components questioned this sociopolitical trajectory.

  • Exhibition curated by Lionel Bovier and organized in collaboration with Galerie der Stadt Schwaz and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
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FONDATION MAMCOÉtat de GenèveVille de GenèveJTIFondation LeenaardsFondation genevoise de bienfaisance Valeria Rossi di Montelera
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