Artists Cao Fei And John Baldessari Will Creeate BMW’s Next Art Cars

BMW has an exceptional relationship with art in general, sponsoring various projects and commissioning artists to use its cars as canvases.

It all began with French racing driver and art enthusiast Hervé Poulain, more than 40 years ago, when he asked Alexander Calder to come up with a unique creative piece do design his race car. The result was a BMW 3.0 CSL, which in 1975 was raced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and became an instant favorite with the spectators, spawning the BMW art collection dynasty.

Since then, artists from around the world were employed by the German car manufacturer to create “Art Cars” on the basis of contemporary BMW automobiles.

The most recent project was a M3 GT2 designed by Jeff Koons, in 2010, but BMW announced the upcoming addition (and unveiling) of the 18th and 19th Art Cars, made in collaboration with Cao Fei and John Baldessari.

Both artists will be working with the BMW M6 GT3, and by laying their artistic print on the model, they’ll be joining the ranks of outstanding artists such as Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and David Hockney.

The 18th model will bear Cao Fei’s touch (considered by numerous international media as the most important Chinese contemporary artist), who will link the project to the technological and social developments of the 21st century:

“The theme of this century is that we enter ‘a landscape of no man’s land’, e.g. autonomous cars and aircrafts and virtual reality. I expect to transcend the current context of ‘cars’ and to embrace new possible ways of expressions. To me, that not only includes the artist, but also the public”, said Cao Fei.

An icon of American conceptual art, John Baldessari approached the 19th BMW Art Car project with his signature style. Considering himself a minimalist at heart, Baldessari likes to draw on his own iconic techniques:

“For me, the car is certainly an icon of contemporary life. I have done sculpture before, but it’s the first time I have ever in a sense collaborated. I didn’t design the car – I collaborated with the designers of the car. I think the challenge comes in making something that cannot be understood from just one point of view, but only from a total point of view. I figured my use of colored dots is kind of an iconic series, so I had to include that. I’m actually advertising myself”, said John Baldessari