Who's Driving?

RoadGuide

Official Souvenir Program of
The Orange Show Art Car Weekend 1997

Welcome to The Orange Show Art Car Weekend 1997, starring the 10th Annual Roadside Attractions: The Artists Parade of Art Cars. What began in 1988 with 40 decorated vehicles and a handful of onlookers has grown into something so big and so grandly original that it almost defies description.

For hundreds of car artists from across the country, the Art Car Parade is a communal celebration and a chance to show their work to an estimated 250,000 spectators. Scores of lowriders, classic cars, costumed rollerskaters, art-bicyclists and hard-to-classify wheeled contraptions get to shine in the spotlight as well.

Each year, musical entries ranging from mariachi to reggae, rock to zydeco, roll on flatbeds in between cars and trucks that have become much, much more than ordinary cars and trucks.

Produced by The Orange Show Foundation and the Houston International Festival, the parade reflects some of the city's most beloved features - its ethnic variety, fierce individualism, love of eccentricity and, perhaps most of all, its community of artists.

But deep in its heart, the Art Car Weekend is simply this: a joyous, unbridled dance to the transforming power of personal artistic expression. It is public art at its most public. If you're part of the public and you're willing to be transformed, well then you're part

Back to Road Guide Home Page