In pointed high heels, black shorts and a soft ivory top, Iris-Doreen Goetzke leans against a cream-coloured 1961 Lincoln Continental in a Greenpoint garage. Around her: toolboxes, fluorescent lights, spare parts and the beautiful excess of an old American car. It already feels like the beginning of a story — somewhere between glamour, escape and a very ordinary afternoon suddenly turning into something else. “Whether she keeps going, runs out of gas, or gets off at the turnpike is up to the viewer.”
Iris Takes the Wheel came to fruition through serendipity and the generosity of strangers. Photographer Ola Wilk was walking past a body shop on her block in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, when she fell in love with a car. “I asked who it belonged to, and out walked Freddie. Almost immediately, he gave us the green light to do whatever we wanted with it.” And from there, the story began to form almost by itself.
Together with stylist Rebecca Bailey, they imagined a woman who had finally had enough, took her husband’s car and disappeared for the afternoon. The photographs move between the garage and the interior of the Lincoln, between polished chrome, warm brown leather, sunlight, bare legs and hands resting near the steering wheel. “We imagined a woman who had finally had enough, took her husband’s car and disappeared for the afternoon.”
The story lives somewhere between a stripped-down 1950s housewife, a runaway, and a very minor marital crisis. There is something playful about the premise, but also something strangely familiar in the idea of simply getting behind the wheel and going somewhere without explaining why.
