Dustin Shuler dies at 61; L.A. artist skewered cars into pop art

Dustin Shuler, a Los Angeles artist known for large-scale outdoor installations that included his most famous work, a sculpture of skewered automobiles in a suburban Chicago shopping plaza, has died. He was 61.

Shuler died May 4 of pancreatic cancer at his Inglewood home, said his wife, Karen Zindler-Shuler.

Installed in a parking lot in 1989, the 50- foot-high “Spindle� became something of a landmark in Berwyn, Ill., before it was dismantled nearly 20 years later to make way for a drugstore.

When one of the shopping mall’s owners asked for help spicing up the plaza, Shuler, who often made car-based art, proposed an idea that he had long contemplated.

“People used to put bills on spindles, so why not put cars on a really tall one?� he said in a 2003 Chicago Tribune article.

The sculpture gained wider fame when it appeared in the 1992 movie “Wayne’s World� and in Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody� video. Some referred to the piece as “the car kebab.� It was crowned with a VW Beetle.

After it was announced that the sculpture would be torn down, hundreds participated in Save the Spindle rallies, which moved Shuler.

“It would have been a lot easier for me if people hadn’t fallen in love with it,� Shuler said in a 2007 National Public Radio interview of the demise of his eight cars on a spike. “I’d love to see my work continue on, but it doesn’t bother me.�

Although he drew and created some smaller-form art, he was drawn to size and fascinated by “the visual effects of the natural process of deterioration,� his wife said.

In 1980, Shuler received attention for a work of performance art at Cal State Dominguez Hills when he dropped an oversized steel nail from a crane into a 1959 Cadillac. He called the work “Death of an Era.�

To help pay for the event, Shuler stripped the Cadillac to sell parts as souvenirs, which gave him the idea to deconstruct cars and lay out their flattened bodies as “pelts,� another abstraction for which he was known.

“He was always aware of the provocative nature of his work, but that was never the reason for doing it,� his wife said.

Born in 1948 in Wilkinsburg, Pa., Shuler took art classes at night at what is now Carnegie Mellon University while working in a factory for Westinghouse Electric Corp.

In his early 20s, he moved to Southern California, and for several years in the 1970s he worked as a welder in an aircraft engine factory before turning to art full time.

He had installation commissions for public spaces around the country and had exhibited widely in California.

For a temporary installation in Los Angeles in 1982, Shuler pinned a 700-pound Cessna 150 aircraft to the wall of the American Hotel, employing his 20-foot nail.

His “Sea Bee� sculpture incorporated the bow from a boat and was installed in 1990 in a Massachusetts parking lot. It looked like it “was either sinking into or emerging from an asphalt sea,� Mike McGee, an art gallery director at Cal State Fullerton, said in a statement.

When new shopping center owners decided to remove the sculpture in 2002, Shuler cut more than 7 feet from the top and reinstalled “Sea Bee� on the Cal State Fullerton campus.

In addition to his wife, Shuler is survived by a brother, Terry; and a sister, Lynn Seng.

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