by Abigail Doan
It’s official that the eco-chic Smart Car is coming to the USA in 2008, and to add to this momentum, Smart is releasing a gorgeous creative anthology, “Sideways: A Smart Art Project”, as a means to highlight’s Smart’s goals of greening urban transportation and our contemporary motoring lifestyle. The project combines the diverse work of 100 international contributors in collaboration with 11 leading international magazines. The eco-based submissions have been cultivated from the fields of photography, illustration, graphic design, painting, sculpture, architecture, and fashion. “Sideways: A Smart Art Project” is definitely moving us forward with 240 pages of modern ideas about creative inroads for our environmental roadmap as well as progressive transportation alternatives.
An “aesthetic approach to environmental issues” might not be the most urgent way to tackle some of the most pressing issues out there, but we cannot overlook Smart’s track record to date and their history of being an auto manufacturer with low CO2 emission standards. The Sideways project will be accompanied by an international marketing campaign that will seek to “underline Smart’s view that it is possible to act ecologically without remotely neglecting aesthetic design concerns.” Smart’s Head of Marketing and Sales, Anders Sundt Jensen, has commented, “Sideways looks at the issue of ecology in a new creative context, and it should therefore generate some interesting new takes on the topic.”
Artists involved in the project include: Terence Koh, Steven Klein, Ari Marcopoulos, Hanna Liden, Ataleier Van Lieshout, Marjetica Potrc, Rikrit Tiravanija, and Benjamin Alexander Huseby, to name a few. Lot-ek has created the environmental design installation for the book’s official launch here in NYC on March 19.
“Sideways: A Smart Art Project” was produced by Die Gestalten Verlag, a Berlin publishing house in conjunction with Smart. Sideways will be available beginning April 1, 2008 in the international book trade, at museum and concept stores, and online at Amazon.com.
+ Smart USA
+ ‘Smart Car is Coming to the US in 2008′ on Inhabitat (December 2007)
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