Brooklyn-based art collective MSCHF has made a practice of turning familiar objects into something stranger, whether that means blowing a cartoonish red boot up to near-comical proportions or shrinking a handbag to microscopic scale. For its latest experiment in distortion, MSCHF has chosen a considerably larger subject: two Lexus vehicles.
Photography by Matt Hartz for Lexus
Commissioned by Lexus for MOTOMORPHOSIS, a new exhibition opening during New York’s Armory Week, MSCHF transformed a Lexus RZ 450e and RX 450h+ into a pair of automotive sculptures that look less fabricated than digitally manipulated. Each appears alongside its production counterpart, making the extent of the transformations immediately apparent.
The RZ 450e becomes Circle Car, its body stretched and curved until the front and rear meet in a continuous loop. The RX 450h+ undergoes a different kind of contortion in Twisted Car, where the vehicle rotates dramatically along its length, pulling its windows, doors, and body lines into a spiral.
Photography by Matt Hartz for Lexus
While both might resemble concept cars from an especially surreal auto show, MSCHF calls them “Form Cars.” The distinction flips the conventional concept-car exercise on its head: rather than using an experimental vehicle to explore future technology or functionality, the collective treats the existing automobile primarily as a form to be manipulated.
Photography by Fritz Metayer for MSCHF
That approach draws from the digital tools designers routinely use. Operations like stretching, bending, and twisting an object are relatively mundane inside 3D software, even when they produce geometries that would be absurd in the physical world. MSCHF also points to the “squash and stretch” of 3D animation, where forms distort through smear frames to communicate action. MOTOMORPHOSIS effectively freezes that visual shorthand and gives it physical mass.
Photography by Fritz Metayer for MSCHF
Exhibiting the sculptures beside intact versions of the vehicles reinforces the contradiction. One object is carefully engineered to move through physical space; its distorted double is completely static, yet visually communicates movement more emphatically.
Photography by Fritz Metayer for MSCHF
“Most conversations about electrification focus on how a vehicle is powered. MOTOMORPHOSIS asks a different question: What can electricity power in our imagination?” says Lisa McQueen, senior manager of Lexus marketing. “Working with MSCHF allowed us to take the automobile beyond its familiar form and explore movement, transformation and possibility in an entirely new way.”
Photography by Fritz Metayer for MSCHF
MOTOMORPHOSIS is on view at Chelsea Industrial in New York until Sept. 26, 2026.
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