Vahap Avsar's destroyed cruiser at the Charles Bank Gallery
F*** the police. Or at least their cars. This seems to be the message of 46-year old Turkish born visual artist—and co-founder of Brooklyn Industries—Vahap Avsar's first U.S. solo exhibition at Charles Bank Gallery on Bowery. The not-so-subtle centerpiece of the show titled NONEISAFE is a former New York State police car that has itself been the victim of first degree assault and battery.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Avsar acquired the 1996 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor from a junkyard in Saugerties, N.Y. for $800. Before torching and burning the car, Avsar painstakingly remade the vehicle into an almost exact doppelganger of an NYPD cruiser, using his cellphone pictures of parked cruisers and comparing Pantone color swatches for his piece with actual patrol cars.
Why nurse the old steed back to health only to destroy it? Avsar claims it is not about disdain for the police. Instead, he told the WSJ, "I wanted to play with the idea of an untouchable institution, the NYPD, being infiltrated and destroyed. And I think that's very possible. I hope that will never happen, but we live in a world of unconventional wars."
The gallery even went so far as to confer with New York City Patrolmen's Benevolent Association about exhibiting a mangled police car and was told that if the car had been obtained legally, the piece was covered by freedom of expression. On display at the Charles Bank Gallery through June 19, the bruised cruiser is available for a small fine of $60,000.
