HUNTINGTON, NY.- The Heckscher Museum of Art presents Car Culture: Art and the Automobile. On view from April 27 through August 11, 2013, this exhibition explores artistic responses to the automobile in photographs, paintings, and sculptures that examine an aspect of our experience that is usually taken for granted.

In speaking about the exhibition, Lisa Chalif, Museum Curator, said “This exhibition examines the wide-ranging approaches artists have taken in exploring the phenomenon of the car in 20th century culture. Their subjects range from the automobile and oil industries to the roadside environment, accidents, and the junkyard. Some artists create work from automobile parts or use the car itself as their canvas, as seen in the scale models of the BMW Art Cars painted by artists like Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Sandro Chia, David Hockney, and others.”

Car Culture: Art and the Automobile explores artistic response to the automobile, which has transformed daily life in the 20th century, irrevocably changing the appearance of our environment and the experience of it. While some artists focus on images of the car itself, inspired by its alluring modernity or its status as an icon or expression of personal identity, others create art work from car parts such as scrap metal and tires. Later artists comment on the automobile’s ubiquitous presence in the landscape, seen in the roadside environment, the phenomenon of the road trip, and ultimately the damage caused to our environment.

Also opened on April 27 and on view through August 4, 2013, is Scooters, Cranberry Pickers, and “Whirling Dervishes”: Hal B. Fullerton’s Long Island. Hal B. Fullerton was a self-taught photographer whose works document the picturesque, agrarian charm of Long Island in the early years of the 20th century.

As a special agent and agriculturalist for the Long Island Rail Road, Fullerton’s photographs were reproduced in promotional material that encouraged tourism and farming on the Island. Born in Ohio, Fullerton worked in New York before moving to Long Island, settling first in Brooklyn, and then progressively east to Queens, Huntington, East Setauket, and finally Middle Island. In Suffolk County, Fullerton and his wife established experimental farms for the L.I.R.R., contributing to the area’s agricultural development. His photographs capture the picturesque, agrarian charm of the Island, while also revealing aesthetic conventions seen in contemporary painting of the period.