New Car

Iggy always makes his works in steps. He starts a work of art, puts it away, and later takes his time to find what is missing. This work was presented in Poland in 2019, without butterflies. In 2024, the work with butterflies was presented in Amsterdam: 'I knew something was missing, it wasn't finished yet.'

Did you know that these are real butterflies? They are extremely fragile, and some are already decades old.

Do you recognize the shape of this work? You often see them dangling, in traffic jams or in front of a traffic light. These scent trees, in mini versions, have been hanging in cars for more than 70 years to combat bad smells.

In 1952, farmers asked Julius Sämann, a Canadian chemist, if he could come up with something to combat the bad smell of spilled, sour milk in the farmer's cars. After research, Sämann soaked blotting paper in pine needle oil, which turned out to smell nice for weeks. The fragrance diffuser took the form of a small pine tree: the Little Tree, Arbre Magique or Wunderbaum, as the Germans call it, was born.

The place on the rear-view mirror, right behind the windscreen, turned out to be an ideal showcase to promote the product. More and more motorists bought the product. Slowly but surely, the fragrant tree conquered the entire world.

Owning a car is a status symbol in many cultures. A new car is even more special and out of reach for many. You are the first to touch everything, set it in motion, and breathe in that ‘new car smell’. Sämann captured that special feeling in a fragrance, called New Car. Iggy captures that feeling in an absurdist format.

Iggy draws his inspiration from the everyday. He observes his surroundings, and filters out absurdities. His most famous work was an ATM, where you got paid for your best smile. The exchange rate, based on supply and demand, determined the amount your smile was worth. Burglars saw this ‘ATM’ and broke into the exhibition. They demolished the work, and discovered only a few euro coins inside. They probably didn’t laugh much… Iggy did, though, he thought it was a wonderful story. What a waste of this work!

Ignacy Radtke (Iggy) was born in Poland in 1996 and has lived and worked in Amsterdam for many years. He studied at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam until 2023. His work has been exhibited in Denmark, Poland and the Netherlands.