Drive

At the beginning of the exhibition, you enter a bright, white gallery with a spare doorway at the center of the far wall, directly in front of you. Above the doorway, a mustard-yellow, vinyl banner extends wall-to-wall, and reads THE AIDS CRISIS IS STILL BEGINNING in bold, ketchup-red, all-caps, san-serif font. Below the yellow banner, the spare doorway frames a vintage wheeled derby car in the next room. Low on the walls, near the floor, a sharp, thin, red vinyl line runs the perimeter of the gallery. This red stripe, which might recall a racing stripe, refers to the derbycar. It runs throughout the exhibition.
In this next gallery, the derby car sits at the center on a white plinth or base. The bottom of the plinth is encircled by the same sharp, thin, red vinyl line that also runs the room’s perimeter. The plinth isn’t quite a standard rectangle; it is angled and leans backwards. The shape suggests the car’s forward movement and velocity. The top of the plinth, on which the car sits, is a dark gray.
I’ll describe the other items in the room, and then return to the car for a more detailed description.
On the gallery’s far wall, behind the car, hangs a small, framed newspaper clipping of a young Gregg Bordowitz racing another child in a derby car with the headline “To the Roar of the Crowd.” A navy blue first-place ribbon and red second-place ribbon flank the clipping.
On the adjacent wall, to the car’s right, hangs an analog clock under vinyl letters that read “CAPE TOWN.” Directly across from this, on the wall to the car’s left, hangs another analog clock under vinyl letters that read “NEW YORK.”
Face the wall where you entered, your back to the car, and two framed images hang to the left of the doorway. One is a flyer for the 2002 exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary art called Gregg Bordowitz: Drive. A graphic of the derby car predominates in the center.
The framed image to the right of this features text from the artist under the heading “The Effort to Survive AIDS Considered from the Point of View of a Race-Car Driver.”
The car’s shape recalls a phallus, with a long, straight shaft and rounded tip. It stands on sets of disk-shaped wheels at the nose and rear, about the size of dinner plates and attached to the car by protruding, rusty, brown metal wings. The body itself is composed of an aged, silver metal with a decal of three red lines running horizontally along both sides. The line loops around the rear and concludes with arrows at the car’s nose. The car is covered in a number of big, colorful decals with logos for pharmaceutical companies.
If we stand directly in front of the car, the first wheel on the left side is red, with the word PATENTS written in arched, bold, white, all-caps, san-serif font. The back wheel is green with arched text that reads GENERICS in the same font. On the car’s right side, these same wheels swap positions, the green wheel at the front and the red wheel at the back.
On top of the car, set back from the nose, a large, white, circular decal with a thin black border reads the number ‘40’ in a bold, black font. The metal wing connecting the front left wheel has a horizontal, white decal that reads HIV+ in a bold, red font, a sticker that reappears on the back right wing.