California Car Wash

California Car Wash

Sculpture - Outdoor

 800 North State College Boulevard, Fullerton, CA, 92831

California Car Wash

Dustin Shuler, 1987

Mixed media sculpture located on the North side of Visual Arts Center. It was a gift of Louise and Richard Newquist.

One of the earmarks of the work of Dustin Shuler (1948–2010) is his sense of humor and his often bigger-than-life sculptures. His oeuvre includes airplanes hanging from the side of buildings; a crushed-motorcycle-embedded-in concrete titled Roadkill; a grouping of eight cars impaled on a giant spindle at a shopping mall parking in Illinois; and the bow of an old ship vertically pointing to the sky as if it were sinking into asphalt. Shuler originally intended California Carwash to be an actual “skinned” Volkswagen strung between two palm trees in L.A.’s McArthur Park. For logistical and practical reasons this never worked out. Instead, Shuler created this smaller version of the sculpture with a fabricated car, that looks as if it has been steamrolled, hanging on a clothesline between two Hollywood-like palm trees. Another way of looking at Shuler’s car sculptures is to think of them as “skinned” hunting trophies mounted on the wall. This interpretation capture a sense of the hazards of California driving and perhaps more generally in contemporary terms the approaching obsolescence of the gas-guzzling automobile.Dustin Shuler’s work has been exhibited and reviewed internationally.

Medium type: Multi-media

Date created: 1987

Dimensions: 168" x 120" x 44"

Location Info

800 North State College Boulevard

800 North State College Boulevard, Fullerton, CA, 92831