Gas Tank City

Andrew Holmes is renowned for his hyper­re­al coloured pen­cil draw­ings. His sub­ject mat­ter is the fixed and mobile ser­vice infra­struc­ture that sus­tains the city of Los Ange­les. The gleam­ing trucks, auto­mo­biles, and motor­cy­cles that tra­verse the high­ways, and the indus­tri­al arma­ture of stor­age tanks, ser­vice sta­tions and truck stops to be found beyond the city’s edge are, for Holmes, the great­est arte­facts of a soci­ety based on oil. Over the past 50 years, he has cap­tured scenes from this unique­ly Amer­i­can land­scape in painstak­ing detail. Along with com­men­taries by Thomas E Crow, Mark Fish­er, Cedric Price, and Holmes him­self, Gas Tank Citypresents 100 of Holmes’s Los Ange­les draw­ings. Togeth­er they evoke a lost civilisation.

Andrew Holmes is Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor of Archi­tec­ture at Oxford Brookes Uni­ver­si­ty. He was for­mer­ly Guest Pro­fes­sor at the Tech­nis­che Uni­ver­si­taat, Berlin, and a Vis­it­ing Schol­ar at the Get­ty Research Insti­tute. For many years he was an inno­v­a­tive and inspir­ing tutor at the Archi­tec­tur­al Asso­ci­a­tion. He lives and works in London.

Thomas E Crow is an art his­to­ri­an and crit­ic, best known for his influ­en­tial writ­ing on the role of art in mod­ern soci­ety and cul­ture. He is the Ros­alie Solow Pro­fes­sor of Mod­ern Art at the Insti­tute of Fine Arts, NYU.

Mark Fish­er (1947−2013) was an archi­tect best known for his exu­ber­ant stage sets for the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Bei­jing Olympics (2008), and per­for­mance artists includ­ing Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Madon­na and Elton John. 

Cedric Price (1934−2003) was an archi­tect and teacher whose influ­ence can­not be over­stat­ed. His Fun Palace project, of 1964, inspired a gen­er­a­tion of archi­tects, and is one of the found­ing projects of the British High Tech movement.