2013 - ART CAR OAK RACING COSTA

Lot 3
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2013 - ART CAR OAK RACING COSTA
Châssis : Monocoque Bodywork : Carbon and Steel Weight : 1 300 kg Dimensions : 4546 mm /2000 mm Rims : OZ 18’’ Suspensions : Double wishbones In motorsport, weight is the declared enemy of any competitor in search of performance. In this world where every gram counts, adding nearly 400 kilos to a race car is quickly considered as pure heresy. In this case, however, this approach is seen by all as an artistic performance. It is the result of the meeting between Jacques Nicolet and the artist Fernando Costa, through the agent Cyril Taesh Wahlen. Love at first sight was immediate: “Very enthusiastic, Jacques Nicolet wanted to commission a painting from me,” recalls the artist. Then he changed his mind: he entrusted me with a racing frame and gave me complete freedom! A real honor for me, as I am passionate about Le Mans 24 Hours, which I often went to see as a spectator. I love the atmosphere at night”. The chassis in question has a fine pedigree with four participations in the 24 Hours and two podiums in the LMP2 category! Of course, it has a carbon shell: “Since you can’t weld on carbon, I first covered the car with a first layer of riveted steel,” explains Fernando Costa. Then I covered this skin with fragments of enamel plates. I knew right away what I wanted to do. First, I wanted it to be a firework of color and humor. I wanted the pictograms to represent everything around the circuit. I said to myself: “for once, it is the circuit that will go around the driver and not the driver who goes around the circuit! After six weeks of work, more than 20,000 welding points, 250 kilos of steel and 120 kilos of panels, the promise was kept! “I was in heaven! In fact, it was on this project that I had the longest working day of my career: 26 hours in a row”, says the artist. The start, the finish, the refuelling stations, the date of the creation of the 24 Hours, the different bends are thus staged with fantasy in a chromatic festival. A real success, unanimously acclaimed. The Automobile Club de l’Ouest has chosen this Art Car as a symbol of the 90th anniversary of Le Mans 24 Hours. At the time, I didn’t realize what was happening to me,” says Costa, looking back. “I was focused on my work and I didn’t realize how much this project was going to generate...” A SCULPTURE ON WHEELS To celebrate the 90th anniversary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2013, this four-time LMP2 chassis was enhanced by artist Fernando Costa, who covered it with fragments of road signs to create a unique Art Car. Obviously, there was no question of using such a work in the race. However, Jacques Nicolet found a roundabout way for this artistic impulse to resonate on the track. Fernando Costa’s creation was scanned by the Dassault Système Design Studio in order to transpose the markers of the work of art onto the bodywork of a car entered in the 24 Hours. Of course, in this version, the heavy panels have been replaced by an adhesive film that is much more compatible with chronometric performance! Fernando Costa: an artist who fell into the trap Are we born an artist? Does one become one? For Fernando Costa, the trigger came from a television report when he was 14 years old: «I stumbled upon this subject dedicated to Caesar. I knew nothing about art, but I liked it immediately. For me, Caesar revolutionized many things in the field of artistic creation by using recuperation. The young Costa receives a new sting during the visit of an exhibition in Beaubourg. It is decided: he is going to put himself in the scrap metal. He even found an ironworker ready to teach him the basics: “René Peyrodes was six months away from retirement and he kept me by his side all this time. I didn’t know anything about it. He taught me how to weld, cut metal, grind, sand... He even gave me an old chicken shed in Gignac, in the Lot, to use as a workshop.” Fernando Costa devotes himself to a favorite material: road signs. “I had this idea as a teenager. I was into the idea of recycling, like Caesar. I think it’s a cool idea to recycle things that are rejected by the state. So, indirectly, recycling our taxes... At the time, it made people laugh. I find that there are many interesting materials: colors, pictograms, numbers, letters... I then started to collect panels from the DDE, municipal services...”.
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