---
title: "Watching a Car Fall to Pieces Has Never Looked So Awesome"
description: "Swiss artist Fabian Oefner stuns again with “Disintegrating II”"
date: "2016-05-06"
modified: "2016-05-06"
authors:
  - name: "Jonathon Ramsey"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/jonathon-ramsey.md"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/news/3354/watching-a-car-fall-to-pieces-has-never-looked-so-awesome"
categories:
  - "News"
---

# Watching a Car Fall to Pieces Has Never Looked So Awesome

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/archive-images/disintegrating-cars-hero.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

In 2013 Swiss artist [Florian Oefner](<https://fabianoefner.com/?portfolio=disintegrating>) exhibited three prints in a photographic series called “[Disintegrating](<https://mikeshouts.com/disintegrating-fabian-oefner/>)” at the [MB&F Mechanical Art Devices (M.A.D.) Gallery](<https://www.mbandf.com/mad-gallery/creators/disintegrating-2/>) in Geneva, Switzerland. Rich and complicated, each image presented a deity of vintage motoring, [like the 1967 Ferrari 330 P4](<https://fabianoefner.com/?portfolio=disintegrating>), as if caught in the middle of an explosion devoid of sound or fury – the viewer gazed at a frozen cloud of hundreds of minute and outstandingly detailed car parts. Oefner called them “[possibly the slowest high-speed images](<https://blog.hemmings.com/?p=644422>) ever taken.”

![disintegrating-cars-art-1.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/disintegrating-cars-art-1.jpg>)
**Fabian Oefner**

He’s back with five more prints in “Disintegrating II” on show at the M.A.D. Gallery in Dubai. And unlike last time, when he wouldn’t utter a word about how he went about his work, “Disintegrating II” comes with [a behind-the-scenes video](<https://vimeo.com/163423425>).

![disintegrating-cars-art-2.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/disintegrating-cars-art-2.jpg>)
**Fabian Oefner**

What looks like wholesale CGI, or at the very least some type of computer-generated trickery, is nothing of the kind. Well, almost. [Oefner spends a day disassembling](<https://www.yatzer.com/fabian-oefner-disintegrating-hatch>) intricate model cars with hundreds or thousands of parts. After sketching the exploded look he wants, he carries out a precisely lit studio shoot with each individual part held in place with needles and string – even wee tiny screws. Then comes the computer compositing work, Oefner stacking each component into place. For the most recent set, a single car could involve taking thousands of individual photographs and [he might spend two months](<https://www.designboom.com/art/fabian-oefner-disintegrating-cars-04-26-2016/>) creating the final look. As to the why, [the TED-talking artist](<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh3_wYHdeVs>) said, “I have always been fascinated by the clean, crisp looks of 3D renderings. So I tried to use that certain type of aesthetic and combine it with the strength of real photography.”

![disintegrating-cars-art-3.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/disintegrating-cars-art-3.jpg>)
**Fabian Oefner**

The current image cache contains a 1936 Auto Union Type C, a 1957 Maserati 250F, a 1969 Ford GT40, a 1934-1940 Bugatti 57 SC, and a 1982 Porsche 956. The gallery is selling limited edition prints in two sizes, but Oefner’s first success has brought inflation with it: prints from the first exhibition sold for about 1,900 Swiss francs in 2013 (about $1,918 US); prints for the two available sizes of “Disintegrating II” are 15,000 Emirati Dirhams (about $4,100 US) and 70,000 AED (about $19,000 US).

![disintegrating-cars-art-4.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/disintegrating-cars-art-4.jpg>)
**Fabian Oefner**

![disintegrating-cars-art-5.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/disintegrating-cars-art-5.jpg>)

https://player.vimeo.com/video/80463569

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