1:3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

6:5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

6:6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

This is ‘Trans Am Apocalypse No. 2’ by Canadian artist, John Scott… and it is Awesome.

Basically the idea Scott had was if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were going to ride in using modern Horses, Famine would probably use a black 1980 V8 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am.

…which makes sense since the catalytic converter wasn’t mandatory until 1981.

So he took one of my favourite cars ever, covered it in black house paint, then scratched the “entire text of the Revelation of St. John the Divine from the New Testament” into it using a nail… because, obviously, that’s what Jesus would have done given the opportunity.

Scott’s first attempt was scrapped, but he continued to work on the idea and his next attempt, Trans Am Apocalypse No. 2, was featured in the National Gallery of Canada in 1993.

That’s when I first saw it, and it was still there in 1997 when I took this photo. This one, lonely, solitary photo. I wasn’t even sure I was allowed to take this one… there were signs up saying no flash photography, but for some reason I registered them as reading ‘no photography period’ and there was a security guard in the next room. So…

If I had access to this Car today I’d probably take a hundred shots of it… but I only had 36 shots, and a whole gallery to explore — actually I wasted four of those shots on ‘The Voice Of Fire’, which are four words you can use to upset a Canadian [link].

…anyway, Scott’s final attempt, ‘Trans Am Apocalypse No. 3’, was on tour until 2016, with stops in galleries in the US and Southern Ontario, but now it’s in storage at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Links:
(1) Photo of the whole car from The AMICA Library: [link]
(2) John Scott Bio: [link]
(3) Trans Am Apocalypse No. 3 [link]
(4) Revelations text: [link]
(5) Photo and short article on John Scott and Vol. 3: [link]
(6) Apparently the cool kids are getting into film again: [link]

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…click on the photo below to see a more legible version:

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