Thomas Bayrle is back: the revival of Germany’s veteran pop art radical

Thomas Bayrle’s American Dream [Chrysler], 1970. Photograph: Thomas Bayrle, Gladstone Gallery, New York and neugerriemschneider, Berlin

Veteran German pop artist Thomas Bayrle’s latest work, which was unveiled atop the former Fiat factory in Turin’s Lingotto district this month, casts an ambivalent verdict on the future of the product that used to be made a few storeys below.

Three upright loops made out of one circular strip of flat metal, the sculpture, entitled Flamingo, evokes the assembly lines where the Italian carmaker used to make its racing machines and the La Pista 500 rooftop test track where their horsepower was put to the test. But it also looks a bit like a road that is going nowhere.