Beep Beep

6 Jul-27 Oct 2024

Beep Beep, 2024, Research image from the artist's father's shed. Credit: Courtesy the artist

Overview

Two embellished shipping containers hold precious cargo: a 1962 Renault 4 (R4) car reanimated by the artist from her late father’s dusty shed in her hometown in the Rhône-Alpes region of France. For many years, the car sat idle among a jumbled assortment of other objects that were initially discarded: bikes, lamps, ashtrays, tools, machine parts, camera equipment, piles of scrap metal, ladders, and countless other everyday artefacts amassed by Puthod’s father with the optimism that they may have a second chance at a life of use.

The R4 (or as it is affectionately known throughout France, “La Quatrelle”) has been a popular economy car with families, farmers and city dwellers in France, and globally, for over 60 years. The introduction of its charming functional design coincided with a strengthening French economy and the growth of national ‘autoroutes’, interconnecting parts of the country as well as with Europe.

Puthod’s Beep Beep excavates personal family narratives relating to the iconic R4 and its connection to social history in both French and Irish rural and industrial landscapes. Punitive import taxation rules impacted how cars were shipped to Ireland for sale. To circumvent this, some manufacturers, including Renault, flat-packed their cars in kit form with hundreds of parts, which were then reconstructed by skilled workers across the country. The R4 was initially assembled in Naas before a larger production facility opened in Wexford in 1962. Its utilitarian design and robust mechanics meant that it was adopted as the vehicle of preference for Telecom Éireann, An Post and other national services. Today, there is no car manufacturing in Ireland and all vehicles are imported. Several days a week, car carrier ships unload brand new vehicles into the Port immediately behind the former graving docks site ready for sale and distribution around Ireland.

The graving docks were used to repair and dismantle boats that were no longer in use. Over the past year, Puthod has restored the R4 with specialist mechanics in France to get it back on the road. This project of discovery and dedication continued in June with a cross-country, Michelin Guide-style tour through France, and by ferry to Ireland. Puthod’s co-passenger, writer/musician Ingrid Lyons, is composing a radio show for the car in collaboration with sound artist Jennifer Moore/Dreamcycles. Storytelling, readings, traditional Irish and French music, and experimental electronic music and tape loops will form part of Puthod’s expanded work. The seven-day, 900km journey was live-streamed online, including an empty fuel tank in Gasville, rush hour in Paris, and a dramatic breakdown only 500m from the ferry in Cherbourg. This homecoming saga mirrors archetypal growth and transformation narratives in Irish storytelling.

The journey continues in Dublin Port through a sequence of chambers built within the shipping containers. These rooms are constructed with a hybrid of handmade and machine-made ‘grave goods’ inspired by the artist’s studio, her father’s shed, the mechanic’s garage, and the factory plant. Akin to a chariot excavated in an ancient tomb, the R4 temporarily occupies the innermost vault, with foam-lined walls that cushion and protect this treasured hoard. Rather than being surrounded by canopic jars, stone tablets and untold riches, Puthod’s R4 is complemented with coolant cylinders, repair instruction manuals and scratchcards. As well as being adorned with custom-fabricated parts and decals, discreet mementos from its epic journey across France are stashed in the glove box and dangle from the windshield.

The line between archaeology and industrial repair is expanded as the R4 becomes a ‘time machine’ of sorts, making mobile a perfectly restored artefact and returning it into the movement of daily life 60 years after it was fabricated. In a world of expendable materiality and experience, Puthod’s journey through gears, engines, roadways, and sailing routes brings forth the ever-present, but sometimes forgotten, importance of physical proximity to our personal relationships and memories.

Liliane Puthod’s recent exhibitions, projects and commissions include: Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin (2023); Solstice Arts Centre, Navan (2023); Skerries Art Trail, Fingal (2023); IMMA, Dublin (2022); VISUAL, Carlow (2021); Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast (2020); Pallas Projects Studios, Dublin (2019). Beep Beep is supported by an Arts Council Project Award.

Artists