Madeline Hollander’s Latest Installation Is Made Entirely Out of BMW Headlights. Watch the Artist Discuss Her Inspirations Here

Sketches for Sunrise/Sunsetby Madeline Hollander for the 2020 BMW Open Work by Frieze.

American artist Madeline Hollander looks for the choreography that exists in the everyday and examines how the human body navigates space within systems of technology and engineering. Car brake lights and street lights, in particular, have been a fascination for the artist, with the stop-and-go flows of traffic appearing to her as one vast dance. Her previous installations have linked real-life human motion to car lights installed within a gallery, an attempt to visualize these connections. 

Photo of Madeline Hollander.

Photo of Madeline Hollander.

Now, as part of the latest commission for Frieze’s BMW Open Work initiative, Hollander is taking BMW car lights as her subject for a new work, Sunrise/Sunset. Debuted as a virtual platform during London’s Frieze Week, Sunrise/Sunset will be on view as a site-specific installation at Frieze Los Angeles in 2021.

Hollander described the commission as “an immersive networked spectacle choreographed by sunsets and sunrises across the globe in real time.” Composed of hundreds of recycled BMW headlights, the work “transforms an automatic adaptive system already embedded within vehicles,” where headlights turn on and off and adjust in response to sensors, “into a live twinkling global map.”

Watch Hollander discuss Sunrise/Sunset below.