2017 BMW Art Car Will Be Designed By A Chinese Artist, Be Based On The M6 GT3

Cao Fei will be the first Chinese artist commissioned by the BMW Group to design one of their Art Cars.

Considered one of the most important young artists to have emerged from the People’s Republic, Cao Fei will have to come up with the 18th vehicle of the collection, which will debut sometime in 2017, based on the underpinnings of the M6 GT3 and inspired by racing cars and changes of the Chinese society over the past decades.

“The car is key to understanding the changes occurring in contemporary Chinese society. The rapid speed of a car and the rapid changes taking place in Chinese society are my inspirations for creating the 18th BMW Art Car“, Cao Fei said. “But my BMW Art Car will adopt an expressive form completely different from previous ones. It will be an interpretation of the century’s theme, namely that we enter ‘a landscape of no man’s land’, e.g. autonomous cars and aircrafts and virtual reality.“

The young artist has been granted absolute creative freedom and she has already gained an insight into the automotive industry, participating in several in-depth meetings with the company’s senior executives. Following its official presentation, the all-new BMW Art Car will participate, just like its predecessors, in a racing event in Asia and will be exhibited in a major museum.

Some of the major international artists who have been invited over the past 41 years by BMW to design their models include David Hockney, Michael Jagamara Nelson, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.