UNSTOPPABLE SPIRIT: A new installation by Italian artist Nino Mustica in collaboration with Land Rover Design Director, Gerry McGovern, celebrates the fusion of art and automotive design during Frieze Week London

• Acclaimed Italian artist Nino Mustica unveils a new collaboration with world renowned automotive designer Gerry McGovern, Design Director, Land Rover

• The work was unveiled at London’s Southbank Centre beside the River Thames

• Launched during Frieze Week London, the sculptures celebrate the fusion of art and automotive design

• Gerry McGovern recently appointed as a Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Art

London, UK, October 14, 2014 – A dramatic new installation has debuted at Southbank Centre’s iconic Royal Festival Hall beside the River Thames. Unstoppable Spirit comprises two dramatic sculptures reaching over seven metres into the London sky and is the product of a unique collaboration between Mustica and Land Rover’s Design Director, Gerry McGovern.

The pieces were inspired by the design and capability of the new Land Rover Discovery Sport and were unveiled during Frieze Week London. They will be on public view until 19^th October.

“Unstoppable Spirit is about the fusion between automotive design and contemporary art,” says Mustica, who has a studio in Milan. “As an artist I am able to work in the abstract with full creative freedom, however the Discovery Sport is a piece of industrial design that must be both versatile and beautiful. This work is a fascinating exploration of how these worlds collide and interact.”

“I have always been a huge admirer of Nino’s work and I’m delighted to be collaborating on this truly unique project,” says McGovern, recently appointed as a Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Art. “Our team at Land Rover understands that art and design are central to the creation of highly desirable vehicles that resonate on an emotional level. I believe art and design enrich people’s lives in all their manifestations. That’s why I’m proud to be revealing Unstoppable Spirit in such an iconic location at London’s Southbank Centre.”

Made from a combination of steel and glass fibre, Unstoppable Spirit creates a striking juxtaposition with the brutalism of Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, originally built for the Festival of Britain in 1951. The two sculptures frame the front of the building, adjacent to the River Thames. Both measure over 7m x 6m x 6m and are of such a size that the integrated Land Rover Discovery Sport’s forms are replicated in a scale of 1:1.

To achieve the intricate curved surfacing requested by Mustica and McGovern, an innovative production technique was developed using Land Rover’s virtual reality cave, a process normally reserved for the development of prototype cars. The sculptures were then handcrafted in Turin before being transported to London. Such was the attention to detail that over 8000 working hours were required for their construction.

Unstoppable Spirit will be open to the public until October 19th at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall and admission is free.  Visit www.unstoppablespirit.com for more information.

Unstoppable Spirit: a collaboration between artist Nino Mustica and Land Rover’s Gerry McGovern film can be viewed here: http://youtu.be/QN872eA9BgU

 

About Nino Mustica:

Nino Mustica was born in the eastern Sicilian town of Adrano. He inherited his mother’s passion for painting and music, while his father – an engineer – instilled in him a love of drawing and architecture. He went on to study at Rome’s Academy of Fine Arts after his initial training at Catania’s Art Institute.

In the early 1970s he spent time in London and Copenhagen, before he moved to New York in the early 1980s. In London he found himself immersed in a free culture driven by experimentation, especially in music, the art form he sees as the most spiritual and capable of influencing other types of expression. It was music that allowed him to follow a path from the figurative to abstract.

In 1986, he settled in the northern Italian metropolis of Milan. Mustica taught at the famed Academy of Fine Arts in Brera and also tutored in Budapest before returning to Milan, this time to the well-known technical university (Politecnico).

Mustica then gave up teaching to dedicate himself to painting, focusing on shaping colour. In 1994, his art took a significant step forward when he started to use 3D modelling software to further elaborate his paintings, transforming colour and its emotions on canvas into ‘shapes of colour’. This process still remains unique and truly personal. Mustica takes one of his traditionally created paintings and re-elaborates it using a computer, producing a 3D pictorial shape. In this process, the passage from the emotion of the colour to the shape is expressed through abstract volumes. The skin that separates a space is created virtually in a weightless universe, abstract like colour and thought. 

The shapes obtained can be translated into any scale, even for architecture. Mustica’s work cuts across art, as music becomes colour abstraction, then a painting, a 3D pictorial shape and finally architecture. Sicilian of origin, but international in scope, Nino Mustica has been admired and studied by painters, sculptors and architects all over the world.

About Gerry McGovern:

As Design Director and Chief Creative Officer for Land Rover, Gerry McGovern, with his team, creates some of the world’s most distinctive and desirable vehicles and is recognised as one of the world’s leading automotive designers.

After completing a degree in industrial design at Coventry University, McGovern went on to study for a Masters at the Royal College of Art in London, specialising in automotive design.  He began his career at Chrysler in Detroit, before returning to the UK as a Senior Designer for Peugeot and later joining the Rover Group. During this period he was the lead designer of the critically acclaimed MGF sports car and the Land Rover Freelander – the bestselling compact SUV in Europe for 7 years – and led the team that created the third generation Range Rover.  McGovern then moved to the Ford Motor Company to head up and rejuvenate the Lincoln-Mercury brands, setting up studios in Detroit and Irvine, California, before returning to the UK to run a design consultancy in London.

McGovern rejoined Land Rover in 2004 as Director, Advanced Design, and was appointed as Land Rover Design Director in 2006.  Since then his position has grown to include the role of Chief Creative Officer and he is a member of the Jaguar Land Rover board of directors.

He and his team are in the process of creating an entire new generation of Land Rovers, redefining the brand and building on established heritage to make the product range relevant to the 21st Century.  The phenomenally successful Range Rover Evoque, developed from the globally-acclaimed LRX concept vehicle, was the first complete manifestation of McGovern’s design strategy since his return from the US.  This was followed by the all-new Range Rover, which launched to critical acclaim in September 2012, the Range Rover Sport (2013) and the recently launched new Discovery Sport.

Responsible for guiding and visioning the future of this great British brand, McGovern is currently leading the team to develop opportunities to grow the business into new areas as well as to meet the challenge of replacing icons such as the Defender.  As Chief Creative Officer McGovern’s wider remit is to guide all aspects of visual communications ensuring a consistent look and feel between the vehicles and the identity of the brand. 

McGovern’s passion for design stretches far beyond the automotive industry; he is an authority on modern architecture and furniture as well as a collector of contemporary art.  He has sat on many panels judging design, presented at numerous prominent international automotive and business events and represents the company at a global level.

About the new Discovery Sport:

The new Discovery Sport is the world’s most versatile and capable premium compact SUV. The first member of the new Discovery family, Discovery Sport features 5+2 seating in a footprint no larger than existing 5-seat premium SUVs.

Discovery Sport’s progressive new design approach defines the new Discovery family with optimised volume, proportions and stance. Its design leadership combines with engineering integrity to result in a dynamic profile, the ultimate use of interior space and 5+2 seating configurability.

“Our challenge has been to combine premium design with exceptional versatility; the two attributes must work in harmony,” says Gerry McGovern, Land Rover Design Director and Chief Creative Officer. “I’m proud to say we’ve achieved that; Discovery Sport’s dynamic design will resonate on an emotional level with consumers, and this vehicle is more versatile than any other premium compact SUV on the market.”