Welcome to one of Hoop’s many Hoopmobiles and the world of art cars. Hoop refers to this incarnation as Techno Trash – an assemblage which he says represents ”all the transitions we’ve gone through over the years, from a needle on a record to a laser beam on a record.” Steven Hooper, or Hoop (the self-proclaimed King of Art) as he prefers to be called, started doing art cars in the East Village about 20 years ago, when he did hundreds of club performances and parties. His work has been featured in over 40 museums and gallery shows (Fusion Arts, Chelsea Art Museum, MOMA, etc.), television, and the news media. Click here for his story and photos of his vehicles. His motivation is to bring art to the average person on the street, whom he feels can’t name one living artist: “Warhol and Dali were the last of the household name artists.”
Currently living in Clifton, New Jersey, where he grew up and now cares for his mother, Hoop makes frequent trips to SoHo (one of his old stomping grounds – he once had studios in Union Square and on Prince Street), where he parks and lets passersby ogle his street art.
The art car movement goes back some time and has seen many incarnations: hippie themed VW buses (such as Furthur), Janis Joplin’s psychedelic Porsche, Lennon’s paisley Rolls Royce, and the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile. There is even a BMW series done by well-known artists such as Warhol and Lichtenstein. The Burning Man festival has had a strong representation. Harrod Blank has made several art cars, written books, and made documentary films on the subject. There are now numerous art car fests nationwide (see here). It’s a virtual industry…
