The Bruce and Denny Show, 2008. Two Rooms Gallery, Auckland. Courtesy Bruce McLaren Trust
Artist Billy Apple’s passions are motor racing and good art. In The Bruce and Denny Show, he again mixes art with life, taking real events from one of the most glamorous eras in our motor sports history as his subject. The Bruce and Denny Show screens racing footage from the day (Players 200, Mosport Park, Canada, September 1967) and, in a double branding maneuver, produces text based portraits typical of his ouvre of the Can-Am cars and their champion drivers – Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme.
Billy Apple™ is a trademarked art brand. As one of the original pop generation, Billy Apple established his brand in London, circa 1962, changed his name and claimed everyday objects (like apples) and life activities (like cleaning and vacuuming) as art. It’s now 45 years since this self-branding exercise, which resolved for him the vexed question of where does art stop and life start by removing the arbitrary distinction between them.