Paper Hero

Why James Bond's Aston Martin is "total rubbish"

November 17, 2006—English sculptor Chris Gilmour's take on the myth of 007 is—to put it politely—ambivalent. Working exclusively with corrugated cardboard harvested from dumpsters near his home base in Udine, Italy, the artist has created Pussy Galore, an exhibit that contains an exact replica of 007's famous Aston Martin DB5, right down to the (faux) tire-slashers, machine guns, and rocket launchers. "I wanted to take the idea of James Bond as this glamorous, invincible superhero and contrast it with an object made of total rubbish," explains Gilmour, who's asking $30,000 for his cardboard creation and takes care to note that the project wasn't intended as yet another crass product tie-in. "I started working on it long before I knew the film was even coming out, so it's a very happy coincidence." See for yourself at New York's Freight + Volume gallery.

Out in L.A., meanwhile, the Museum of Contemporary Art debuts Skin and Bones, a new show tracking the intersection between fashion and architecture. Not the most revolutionary concept to anyone who's ever seen a Narciso Rodriguez collection, but the show promises a good overview of the aesthetic and intellectual connections between the work of names like Koolhaas and Gehry and that of designers like McQueen and Westwood. Count on plenty of talk of cotton and concrete, but don't expect to see much cardboard.

Pussy Galore at Freight + Volume, 542 W. 24th St., NYC, (212) 989-8700, www.freightandvolume.com. Skin and Bones at the Museum of Contemporary Art through March 2007; moca.org.