Wild at Art: The History of the BMW Art Cars

Just a year later, Calder’s compatriot Frank Stella followed suit. He too took on a BMW 3.0 CSL, which also took part in the Le Mans endurance race – bearing the number 21. For motorsport fan Stella, designing the second car in the BMW Art Cars series was a special honor. The design of his work of automotive art was inspired by the technical basis of the object itself. The result was a grid of lines that looked like oversized graph paper. Everything was black and white, which meant that this race car, with its enormous 750 hp of engine power, stood out from its many competitors in the starting field, especially the more colorful ones. As with Calder’s car, the BMW artwork was actually realized by BMW’s legendary paint master, Walter Maurer.

Probably the best known example of the BMW Art Car series is the BMW M1 painted by Andy Warhol himself. This Bavarian super sports car is a legend in itself. Thanks to the design by probably the most famous pop artist of all, the racing version of the BMW M1 became putatively one of the most valuable automobiles in history. Warhol had one thing in common with his predecessors: he too received no fee for his work as a car artist. Yet instead of designing a scale model like his fellow artists and having the car painted, the American did it himself. “I attempted to show speed as a visual image. When an automobile is really traveling fast, all the lines and colors are transformed into a blur,” the artist said in explanation of his work. Warhol literally exemplified this speed, applying over 13 pounds (six kilogram) of paint in just 28 minutes. Credit where it’s due, the mid-engined racing car was also fast in its only race – in Le Mans in 1979. After all, it posted a creditable sixth place finish in the overall standings. The colorful racer then retired to a museum.

No. 6 in the BMW Art Car series comes from another pioneer of pop art (and again an American), Robert Rauschenberg. Like its predecessor, this BMW, a 635 CSi, never started a race. That said, it is the only BMW Art Car to date that has been driven in traffic – by Rauschenberg himself! He created his work of automobile art with the help of works by other artists, which he processed using photographic techniques and then applied to the body of the BMW coupé using foils. This resulted in collages that were typical of Rauschenberg’s style. With his BMW 635 CSi, Rauschenberg showed how the three worlds of art, nature and technology are connected.

Ken Done made it an Australian double in 1989 with BMW Art Car no. 8. Like Jagamara Nelson’s art car, it was based on a Group A BMW M3 touring car. But, in contrast to Nelson Jagamara’s car, Done’s artwork represents modern Australia. The left-hand drive catches your eye straight away – the word that most encapsulates its paintwork would be “colorful”. Done’s aim was to use his BMW Art Car to illustrate the happy side of his homeland. Nature, sun and beaches can be made out, as well as fish and parrots. Done’s BMW M3 can be described with one simple attribute: positive! Just like Jagamara Nelson’s version, Done’s BMW M3 was raced around Australia’s circuits before it became a purely decorative work of art.

For the unofficial anniversary, César Manrique was given the opportunity to make his contribution to the BMW “Art on Wheels” project. To that end, the Spanish avant-gardist took on a BMW 7 Series in 1990. And if onlookers can make out elements of nature in the bright colors and abstract shapes on the bodywork, they’re right, as Manrique took the nature of the Spanish subtropical island of Lanzarote as his model. The black element of the design stands for the Canary Island’s lava rock, green for the rainforest, red for life. You can also see in the flowing shapes what Manrique sees as essential for an automobile: the speedy transportation of its occupants.

The milestone of the first dozen BMW Art Cars was achieved with this eye-catching BMW 5 Series from 1991. More remarkably, this was the first time a woman had been responsible for designing a vehicle in the Art Car series. The design is readily understood as an homage to African culture. Specifically, it relates to “how my tribe decorate their houses,” as Mahlangu explained the design, known as the Ndebele pattern. A tradition that is passed on from generation to generation – and exclusively among women. The South African artist took a week to design her contribution to the series of works of art on cars. Like most of the cars before and after it in the series, BMW Art Car no. 12 is purely an exhibition piece. And of course one of a kind.

After Italy, the next stop on the car artist roadshow was England, where British superstar David Hockney joined the stellar names represented in the back catalog of this BMW collection. For this BMW Art Car it was the company that wooed the artist – persistently and ultimately with success. Hockney’s BMW 850 CSi was the result of a long design process, because it’s not just about applying a little paint, as the pop artist explained. Instead, he took the car apart through his painting, turning it completely inside out. In this way he brought to the surface what he believes lies beneath the skin of the car, the bodywork, namely the car’s fascinating technology.

Ólafur Elíasson’s automobile art is dramatically different from the previous vehicles in the BMW Art Car series. This work by the Dane of Icelandic extraction is a radical break with every Art Car before it. At first you don’t even identify that there’s a car there – the object looks like a giant cocoon. Eliasson is famed for dealing with nature and physical phenomena in his art. This is fitting for the opening vehicle of his opus, because under the shell lies a hydrogen-powered racing prototype. Back to the cocoon: the shell of the BMW H2R is made up of small metal plates that have been sprinkled with water in a huge cold room. This creates an armor of ice that holds the car captive. This mobile object became stationary real estate – Elíasson’s approach to tackling the sustainability of our society.

This BMW Art Car was produced by the multimedia artist Cao Fei. In homage to carbon, the material of choice for so many race cars, the Chinese artist chose the structure of this material as the color background for her project. You need the associated app to get the full effect of BMW Art Car no. 18. With augmented reality, the black race car becomes the focus of a storm of colors that rages above the vehicle. In this way, Cao merges the real and digital worlds.

Almost 50 years after the first BMW Art Car, we have come full circle. The first BMW Art Car, which was designed by Alexander Calder in 1975, débuted at the Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans. Shortly after its premiere as the 20th BMW Art Car, Julie Mehretu’s BMW Art Car lined up at Le Mans with the matching starting number 20. For the design, Julie Mehretu set out to create a playground for the imagination. Her thought: What might the painting look like if the car were to drive through the work and be influenced by it?

Julie Mehretu has therefore based the design of the 20th BMW Art Car on the colour and form of her painting “Everywhen”: alienated photographs, dotted grids, neon-coloured spray paint, and her iconic gestural markings. In the course of the creative process (➜ Read also: All about the BMW Art Car by Julie Mehretu), this was transformed into a three-dimensional representation by means of elaborate wrapping on the BMW M Hybrid V8.