Maybach Sponsors LaChapelle Shock Art For Attention? Or Targeted Sales Pitch To One Customer?
- LA-based photographer David LaChapelle shoots stills for Maybach
- Dream sequence imagery mixed with decadence amidst despair designed to provoke
- Maybach p.r. team drifting? Or being clever with fewer resources?
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG Maybach USA
HOW do you call attention to yourself?
In a Jersey Shore, have-your-15-seconds world, lacking definable talent or product must mean that you have to pin your “brand” to something spectacularly awful so that, you know, you can draw attention to yourself and whatever it is you’re selling.
So, to a point: the only thing missing in this Maybach sponsored photograph from David LaChapelle is a banner that – in art deco font – reads: “Buy a 2010 Maybach 57S now! Bitches!”
We have, I guess, everything else a super high-net worth individual should want in association with their car: gluttony, homoeroticism, pedophilia, destruction, societal decay, and the Maybach demon heroine (which may symbolize the Maybach customer) who somehow bridges the abyss between the flapper set and the depression-era bread liners.
Hey, that bag lady’s making off with the cake!
No worries, the revelers have already spent their load champagne.
If we buy the argument that art’s meant to provoke comment, then this endeavor’s succeeded. If it’s meant to somehow stimulate car sales, that’s less clear.
Or… here’s another thought:
Perhaps, this provoke-you-art-exhibition which will be showcased in Miami is really a highly targeted, expensive sales pitch to one particularly notable LA-based Maybach customer who as a highly visible philanthropist might fancy herself as the Maybach heroine?
It just so happens this customer is a very big collector of contemporary photography >>>
Thanks, John!
About the Author: Gunnar Heinrich is publisher of Automobiles De Luxe online and is executive producer of the Automobiles De Luxe Television series on PBS member station CPTV.
eggsngrits | Dec 10, 2009 | Reply
Ouch. Just wait until we see some Chinese equivalent featuring the austerity excesses of the Maoists proported to advertise Saabs.
Jim | Dec 10, 2009 | Reply
Tiger already has a contract w/Buick.
Sort of like Terry Rodgers work. http://www.terryrodgers.com/paintings/
bmwwheels | Dec 10, 2009 | Reply
It doesn’t surprise me that Maybach sponsored this because this picture describes what Maybach offers. This picture by LaChapelle shows a lot of character while representing Maybach. The picture is exotic. If you saw this picture, you will never forget it. Just like if you saw a Maybach, you will never forget what it looked like because it has an unmistakable identity. Even though the picture doesn’t represent how the first class are supposed to carry themselves, you can tell that is what he was trying to represent. Maybach produces luxury cars for the first class. Maybach also states that is it a “timeless automobile” and an automobile for life”. The banner in the picture says “New Year 1932 (or 1937) showing that it was alive then and it has lasted all these years.
Maybach also informs their customers that you can get whatever you want with this car. There is actually over two million ways that this car can be equipped. I honestly couldn’t think of two million different ways, but that is their claim. In the picture you see all these people getting what they want. Sex, car, booze, drugs, and cake (the old lady walking off with it). There is a guy that is holding a bottle of champagne in his lap. Maybach actually offers a champagne goblet of sterling silver as an option for the car.
Maybach wanted to make a statement. Well, the picked the right guy to sponsor. You would never guess by this picture that David LaChapelle is originally from Fairfield, CT. His style is very “Hollywoodish”.
Good find Gunnar!
Gunnar | Dec 10, 2009 | Reply
Jim, you’re right -the two styles are VERY similar.
BMWwheels, quite the take on this piece. Maybach did make a statement alright and Mr. LaChapelle’s style does smack of Tinseltown.
I like that the Maybach’s based on the W140 S-Class platform. Not keen that the cars are equipped with essentially W220 S-Class kit. In that last respect, the cars are getting dated aesthetically and technologically.
Maybach’s clearly maneuvering with what few resources they’re allotted. We’ll see if the marque makes it another model lifecycle – for all the reasons you state, I hope they do.