The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Dustin Shuler, creator of Chicago’s Cermak Plaza Car Spindle, has passed away.
Shuler died May 4th of pancreatic cancer at the age of 61. Based in LA, the artist was known for large scale art installations, and the 1989 Cermak Plaza skewer was the best known of them.
The cars on the spindle were – top to bottom – ’67 Beetle, ’76 2002 (license plate “DAVE”), ’81 Escort, “73 Capri, ’78 Mustang II, ’81 Grand Prix, ’81 LTD and an ’80 Grand Marquis. The cars were all mounted on a pointed shaft, which was surrounded by Armco barriers at the base.
While the artist succumbed at an earliy age, he out-lived the spindle as it was torn down in 2008 to make way for a Walgreens. His other car-related works included the performance art event of dropping a giant spike through a 1959 Cadillac, and “Dance” a row of twelve cars paired in inverted Vs for the 2004 Sarasota Season of Sculpture. In another work, he splayed car bodies on walls like animal pelts, even posing with a hunting rifle and retriever next next a VW thusly displayed.
You can read the full obit from the LA Times here, or check out the Car Spindle page at Wikipedia here.
Images source: [dustinshuler.com]