Fabian Oefner x Lamborghini

Lamborghini has partnered with NFT PRO and RM Sotheby’s and will receive bids on the five pairs of physical and digital artworks by the renowned artist Fabian Oefner between February 1st, the first day of the new lunar year, and February 4th. The auction for the first of the five NFTs will take place 4pm CET, while each of the other auctions will start and end 15 minutes later than their preceding one. Every auction will last for 75 hours and 50 minutes, the exact time it took Apollo 11 to leave Earth and enter the moon’s orbit.

The physical artwork, the Space Key, contains carbon fibre pieces that Lamborghini sent to the International Space Station back in 2020, as a part of a joint research project. Engraved with a unique QR code, these carbon fibre parts link the digital element, are a series of five photographs of a Lamborghini Ultimae, lifting off toward the stars. The images depict five separate moments within seconds from each other as the car rises above the earth. Its parts, the engine, the transmission, the suspension and hundreds of nuts and bolts are shooting away from the chassis like the exhaust flame of a rocket.

What may look like a computer-generated image is in fact entirely created from elements of the real world: the artist captured more than 1500 individual parts of a real car. The photograph of the earth’s curvature was made by sending a weather balloon equipped with a camera to the edge of the stratosphere. The artist then carefully assembled all of these images into an artificial moment in time. Each of the five NFTs has more than 600 Million pixels. As one starts to zoom in, hidden details of these hyperrealistic photographs are revealed. The resolution is so enormous, that you can read tiny markings on the firing order of the V12 engine or marvel at the different milling patterns on the transmission cog wheels. The longer you look at the composition, the more secrets you discover.

At the start of the project, Oefner meticulously studied the engineering plans of the Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae and created an accurate sketch of what the final photograph will look like. Based on that sketch, Lamborghini prepared all the necessary parts and components of a production ready Ultimae. The pieces were then photographed by Oefner and his team in a makeshift photo studio right next to the production line at the Lamborghini Factory in Sant’Agata Bolognese. Upon his return to his studio in the US, where the artist works and lives near New York City, he combined the countless images into the composition envisioned in the sketch. It took Oefner and his team more than 2 months to create a moment, which is shorter than the blink of an eye. Photos © Fabian Oefner / Lamborghini.