Harrod Blank is an American documentary filmmaker and art car artist living at Berkeley in California. He is the son of Gail, a ceramic artist, and filmmaker Les Blank. His works include the 1992 filmWild Wheels, which documents the artcar phenomenon in America, and the 1998 follow-up Driving The Dream, which focuses on the artists behind the cars. His films have been shown on PBS, TBS, and in cities all over the USA. Harrod has created three art cars of his own: Oh My God!, Pico de Gallo and The Camera Van. Blank is also the co-founder of one of the largest annual art car gatherings in the country - the Art Car Fest, held every September in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is largely responsible for the organization of an art car theme camp at the annual Burning Man festival and is working on a documentary about the event. Blank is currently renovating a building complex in Douglas, Arizona, United States, to become a museum and learning center for art cars; the name of the center will be "Artcar World".
Significant achievements
Harrod Blank is one of the people responsible for bringing the art car and the art car community, along with outsider and visionary artcar artists, out of Houston, TX, California and the West and into the living rooms of much of mainstream America. After being picked up by PBS and TBS, Blank's art car movies were widely aired. At the same time he applied his photographic skills and energy to place art cars on the pages of many newspapers and magazines around the world. This presentation of the art car community to the world resulted in requests for art cars to be placed on exhibit in museums throughout the United States and in Europe. Harrod addressed this demand with his "Art Car Agency", which consists of a number of prominent artcar artists willing to lend out their vehicles for exhibit. Art cars are now accessible up close and personal in many more areas. Through his promotion of Houston's Orange Show art car events including the parade, art car seminars and the Main Street Drag Harrod helped to bring art cars into the world of education where they became the focus of hands-on workshops in schools across the country. Public appearances and lectures at museums and art car events helped Blank to use his personal experience to keep the art car phenomenon moving forward. Soon communities of art car artists sprung up in many eastern states and throughout the country. Some of these communities then partnered with local organizations such as schools, arts councils, and museums to create their own art car events mirroring those held in Houston. Through Blank's work artcars started appearing in television commercials and as "drive ons" in movies much more often than the past. Harrod continues to be active in the art car community. He takes a personal interest and often appears at parades and events. This new visibility for art cars and art car artists does have a downside. For some visionary and outsider artists the temptation to come "inside" to the new artistic genre, where their work has been proclaimed as art and they have been encouraged to self-exhibit, has cost them their special status. Becoming outsiders again is, in the eyes of many critics, now impossible.
