Cadillac Ranch Show is a document of Ant Farm's major site installation, the Cadillac Ranch, which was commissioned by Texas millionaire Stanley Marsh III. Ten Cadillacs, vintage 1948 to 1963, were buried fin-up in a field off Route 66 in Amarillo. The image of ten Cadillacs pointing upward against the sky is a comically subversive homage to the rise and fall of the tail-fin as an icon of postwar American consumer excess. Footage of the burial of the cars is intercut with Cadillac commercials that promote a fetishized ideal, the ultimate American Dream. A pop spectacle that parodies consumerism with a tongue-in-cheek nod to 1970's site art, the Cadillac Ranch is an ironic celebration of the "grotesque and wonderful" tail-fin as the ultimate expression of wasteful design in American culture.
A 1984 postscript to the tape features an interview with former Ant Farm members Chip Lord and Hudson Marquez by Channel 10 News, Amarillo, on the ten-year anniversary of the Cadillac Ranch. The artists address the piece's evolution from a conceptual site sculpture to an interactive, public roadside attraction, now rusted and graffiti-covered. -- EAI
This title is available for exhibitions, screenings, and institutional use through Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), NY. Please visit the EAI Online Catalogue for further information about this artist and work. The EAI site offers extensive resources for curators, students, artists and educators, including: an in-depth guide to exhibiting, collecting, and preserving media art; A Kinetic History: The EAI Archives Online, a collection of essays, primary documents, and media charting EAI's 40-year history and the early years of the emergent video art scene; and expanded contextual and educational materials.