Båstad/Munich. The Aurora 2025 returned from June 27 to 29 at Norrvikens Trädgårdar, showcasing a remarkable collection of unique vehicles. In this exclusive setting, automotive culture, art and Scandinavian style come together in a fascinating way. A special highlight this year: the presentation of four BMW Art Cars from the world-famous BMW Art Car Collection. The iconic vehicles were shown side by side with selected BMW Classic models and exceptional collector's items from Scandinavia. BMW Group proudly partners with The Aurora since last year.

50 Years of BMW Art Cars
This year’s partnership also celebrated a milestone in BMW’s cultural legacy: the 50th anniversary of the BMW Art Car Collection. Since 1975, 20 artists have transformed BMW vehicles into “rolling sculptures”. On the occasion of the anniversary, four of the most famous cars from the collection were on display at The Aurora 2025:

• Alexander Calder: BMW 3.0 CSL (1975)
• Roy Lichtenstein: BMW 320 Group 5 (1977)
• Andy Warhol: BMW M1 Group 4 (1979)
• Jeff Koons: BMW M3 GT2 (2010)

This year’s exhibition at the event not only celebrated the artistic legacy of these masterpieces but also emphasizes BMW’s commitment to cultural engagement and innovation.

"BMW has always believed in the synergy between art and mobility," said Stefan Teuchert, President & CEO, BMW Northern Europe. "The Aurora provides a unique platform to showcase our Art Cars alongside our latest models, merging our rich heritage with the future of mobility in an inspiring way."

In addition to the Art Cars, The Aurora featured a stunning array of extraordinary vehicles from BMW, MINI, Rolls-Royce, and BMW Motorrad, including historical models and modern editions. Visitors had the opportunity to experience the full potential of the BMW Individual program, showcasing the brand's dedication to customization and exclusivity.

"The Aurora is not just an automotive event; it’s a celebration of creativity, innovation, and the rich history of BMW," said Filip Larsson, CEO of The Aurora. "We are thrilled to have BMW as our main partner, bringing their iconic Art Cars and extraordinary vehicles to our attendees."

The BMW Group's Cultural Engagement, with exclusive updates and deeper insights into its global initiatives can be followed on Instagram at @BMWGroupCulture.

Munich/Seoul. From September 4 to 7, Frieze Seoul will open its doors at COEX in Gangnam for the third edition of the internationally renowned art fair in Asia. As one of Frieze’s long-term global partners since 2004, BMW will be celebrating two special premieres at this year's fair: The BMW Art Car #20 by Julie Mehretu makes its Asian debut after being unveiled in Paris in May. Inspired by the BMW Art Car Collection and curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, BMW also presents the world premiere of a limited BMW i7 miniature edition created by artists Heemin Chung and Alvaro Barrington. A major highlight of this year's programme is the second edition of Frieze Music Seoul on September 5, presented in collaboration with BMW and featuring a live performance by Korean singer-songwriter SAAY. BMW will be providing the VIP car service for the third consecutive year, from the inception of Frieze Seoul.

On the occasion of Frieze Seoul, the 20th BMW Art Car by American artist Julie Mehretu will be on display for the first time outside Europe at this year's fair. Fresh from its world premiere at the Centre Pompidou and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, it is the latest addition to the legendary BMW Art Car Collection, continuing an almost 50-year tradition. Since 1975, artists such as Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jenny Holzer, Jeff Koons, Cao Fei, and John Baldessari have turned BMW race and series cars into works of art.

Space, movement and energy have always been central motifs in Julie Mehretu's work. For the design of the 20th BMW Art Car, she transformed a two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional representation for the first time, with which she succeeded in bringing dynamism into form. Julie Mehretu used the colour and form vocabulary of her monumental painting “Everywhen” (2021 - 2023) as a starting point for her design. The work is currently on view at the artist’s major retrospective at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice and will subsequently become part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, to which it has been gifted. The collaboration between BMW and Julie Mehretu continues beyond the car itself for the first time in the history of the BMW Art Car collection. It includes a joint commitment to a series of PanAfrican Translocal Media Workshops for filmmakers, which will tour various African cities in 2025 and 2026, and will culminate in a major exhibition at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town.

Inspired by the BMW Art Car Collection, BMW will present a limited BMW i7 miniature edition created by Korean artist Heemin Chung and London based artist Alvaro Barrington, that are exclusively for sale at Frieze Seoul. Both artists were selected by curator and member of the BMW Art Car Jury, Hans Ulrich Obrist. The two artists worked on their design using different artistic approaches to encapsulate the essence of human-centered design and technological innovation, exploring the future of mobility. They created the miniatures in reaction to experiencing the BMW i7, and as a reference to the model name of the vehicle, they designed 7 miniatures each. The profit from the sale of the miniatures will be donated to a charity of the artists’ choice.

Heemin Chung investigates the material potential of digital images as she translates them into the mediums of painting and sculpture. Her work interrogates the role of technology in society and how it has shaped contemporary approaches to art.

Chung worked on her project with the early stages of electric motor development in mind, where experiments in mobility were conducted by imitating nature. She mentions ornithopters, which were designed by studying the forms and movements of birds, bats, and insects. The traces of these experiments are still palpable today in various modern electric motor-powered aircraft. Inspired by the organic curves of the i7, Heemin Chung aimed to make the body appear like a living organism, as if something might emerge at any moment. Chung commented on the connection of her work to the keyword "tech magic" used by BMW to describe the feeling of encountering technological features: “It brought to mind the different forms of magic that have existed throughout history, each contributing not only to humanity but also to the survival and flourishing of life on Earth. Although the ornithopter is remembered as a failed experiment, today's technology has made the dream of emulating nature a reality, continuing to spark new imaginations about power and propulsion.”

Alvaro Barrington’s practice explores interconnected histories of cultural production. Considering himself primarily a painter, Barrington’s multimedia approach to image-making employs burlap, textiles, postcards and clothing, exploring how materials themselves can function as visual tools while referencing their personal, political and commercial histories.

Barrington is interested in how the vehicles of the future will have the potential to recognise our moods, emotions and schedules, and as such adapt to them accordingly. The artist explores the future of cars reimagined as self-driving entertainment units and places for meeting that can help bridge different cultures through new technologies such as instant language translation. Utilising artificial intelligence, cars will go far beyond their purely transporting function and instead help us foster new connections and fulfil our daily needs.

For this project, Barrington looked into video games centered around cars, which were not only important as play and entertainment, but also as platforms for music and culture. Exploring the history of cars and other vehicles that enable travel and movement, the artist has focused on the intersection of cars and culture and the way they have influenced one another. Merging these references, the artist created 7 unique cars, each featuring a drawing from a film,  music video or portraying a cultural figure, which remain influential in Barrington's life and practice.

Frieze Music
In celebration of their long-term collaboration, BMW and Frieze will partner again to present Frieze Music in Seoul. On September 5th, after a successful tour in the United States and release of her hit single ‘Domino’, SAAY will be performing at the Shilla for Frieze Music. Exploring the intersection of music and the arts to spark inspiring dialogues, Frieze Music provides artists the opportunity to create a unique performance, highlighting their craft through song, inspiration and conversations with fellow artists. Launched during the inaugural Frieze Los Angeles in 2019, the joint initiative between BMW and Frieze has brought together a wide range of musicians including Moses Sumney, Caroline Polachek, Nilüfer Yanya or Loyle Carner.

To visit the BMW Lounge please note that entrance tickets are required:

BMW Art Car #20 by Julie Mehretu and limited BMW i7 miniature edition by Heemin Chung and Alvaro Barrington
September 4-7
BMW Lounge, Hall C
COEX, 513 Yeongdong-daero,
Gangnam-gu

Private View
Wednesday, September 4: 2.15pm
Followed by a Champagne Toast
Media Accreditation and interview requests
(limited capacity)

Artist Talk with Heemin Chung, Alvaro Barrington and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist
Thursday, September 5: 3pm
Media Accreditation
(limited capacity)

Opening Hours
Wednesday, September 4: 11am to 7pm (invitation only)
Thursday, September 5: 11am to 7pm (invitation and preview ticket holders only 11am to 3pm, open to the public from 3pm)
Friday and Saturday, September 6/7: 11am to 7pm

The BMW Group's Cultural Engagement with exclusive updates and deeper insights into the global initiatives can be followed on Instagram at @BMWGroupCulture.

Paris/Munich. The 20th BMW Art Car is being presented to the public for the first time today at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Designed by renowned New York-based contemporary artist Julie Mehretu, the project transforms the BMW M Hybrid V8 race car into a performative work of art, continuing a longstanding tradition of BMW Art Cars and competitive racing. Just a few weeks after its World Premiere in the French capital, the newest edition in the storied BMW Art Car collection will compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

“The whole BMW Art Car project is about invention, about imagination, about pushing limits of what can be possible. I don’t think of this car as something you would exhibit. I am thinking of it as something that will race in Le Mans. It’s a performative painting. My BMW Art Car was created in close collaboration with motorsport and engineering teams,” says Julie Mehretu. “The BMW Art Car is only completed once the race is over.”

The collaboration between BMW and Julie Mehretu also includes a joint commitment to a series of PanAfrican Translocal Media Workshops for filmmakers, which will tour various African cities in 2025 and 2026, and will culminate in a major exhibition at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town.

“The BMW Art Cars are an essential part of our global cultural commitment. For almost 50 years, we have been cooperating with artists who are just as fascinated by mobility and design as they are by technology and motorsports. Julie Mehretu's vision for a racing car is an extraordinarily strong contribution to our BMW Art Cars series,” said Oliver Zipse, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG. “Julie Mehretu has created more than an amazing Art Car. Her ideas provided the impetus for us to expand the cultural commitment of our Art Cars to promote the creativity of young artists in Africa.”

A Performative Painting is Created.
Space, movement and energy have always been central motifs in Julie Mehretu's work. For the design of the 20th BMW Art Car, she transformed a two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional representation for the first time, with which she succeeded in bringing dynamism into form. Julie Mehretu used the colour and form vocabulary of her monumental painting “Everywhen” (2021 - 2023) as a starting point for her design. The work is currently on view at "Ensemble", the artist’s exhibition at the Pinault Collection - Palazzo Grassi in Venice and will subsequently become part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, to which it has been gifted.

Its abstract visual form results from digitally altered photographs, which are superimposed in several layers of dot grids, neon-coloured veils and the black markings characteristic of Mehretu's work. “In the studio where I had the model of the BMW M Hybrid V8 I was just sitting in front of the painting and I thought: What would happen if this car seemed to go through that painting and becomes affected by it,” Julie Mehretu says. “The idea was to make a remix, a mash-up of the painting. I kept seeing that painting kind of dripping into the car. Even the kidneys of the car inhaled the painting.”

BMW Art Cars with Le Mans history come together at the Concorso d’Eleganza.
The fusion of image and vehicle was realised with the help of 3D mapping, with which the motif was transferred to the contours of the vehicle. The elaborate foiling allows for the fully designed BMW M Hybrid V8 to compete at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. BMW Motorsport drivers Sheldon van der Linde (RSA), Robin Frijns (NED) and René Rast (GER) will enter the 20th BMW Art Car with starting number 20 at the Circuit de la Sarthe on 15 June. Like them, Julie Mehretu is also eagerly awaiting the race: “I went to see the BMW M Hybrid V8 race in Daytona, and this experience was overwhelming. Designers, engineers, aerodynamicists and so many other creative minds are working on taking this vehicle to its extreme. When it goes out on the racetrack now, so many dreams will be fulfilled.”

Leading up to race day, Julie Mehretu's BMW Art Car will make an appearance at the Concorso d'Eleganza at Villa d'Este in Lake Como on its way to Le Mans. As part of the exhibition for historic vehicles organised by the BMW Group and the Grand Hotel Villa d'Este, Julie Mehretu herself will present the 20th edition of the BMW Art Car Collection. It will be featured on the grounds of the Villa Erba together with the BMW Art Cars by Alexander Calder (1975), Frank Stella (1976), Roy Lichtenstein (1977), Andy Warhol (1979), Jenny Holzer (1999) and Jeff Koons (2010), which also made their race debut at Le Mans. Julie Mehretu will discuss the creation of the 20th BMW Art Car in an artist talk with Adrian van Hooydonk, Head of BMW Group Design, on Sunday, 26 May 2024.

Inspiration for Young Artists: PanAfrican Translocal Media Workshops.
The collaboration between BMW and Julie Mehretu was conceived from the beginning beyond the automobile. It will culminate after the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a project for emerging artists on the African continent: The PanAfrican Translocal Media Workshops. Together, the partners are focussing on the creative potential across the African continent, where the BMW Group has been making a contribution to social responsibility with educational projects for over 50 years.

Julie Mehretu and Mehret Mandefro, Emmy-nominated producer, writer and co-founder of the Realness Institute, which works to strengthen the media ecosystem in Africa, will organise workshops in various African cities and regions throughout 2025. The goal of the project is to provide a space for artists and filmmakers to collaborate and exchange ideas. These meetings will offer a forum for artists to develop new pathways towards a just civic future in their respective communities.

The PanAfrican Translocal Workshop series will visit the cities of Dakar (Senegal), Marrakech (Morocco), Kigali (Rwanda), Lagos (Nigeria) and Cape Town (South Africa). The results of the workshops will be presented together with the 20th BMW Art Car at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town in the first half of 2026.

The BMW Group is thus consistently continuing its decades-long support for film and creative talent: from the short film series ‘The Hire’ and the partnership with the Cannes International Film Festival to the acquisition of works by students from art academies in the neighbourhoods of the company’s plants worldwide.

The Artist.
Julie Mehretu is a world-renowned American painter. She was born in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, in 1970. Together with her family she moved to the U.S. at the age of seven. She lives and works in New York City and Berlin.

Mehretu’s practice in painting, drawing and printmaking engage the viewer in a dynamic visual articulation of contemporary experience, a depiction of social behavior and the psychogeography of space by exploring palimpsests of history, from geological time to a modern-day phenomenology of the social.

Mehretu received her Bachelor’s Degree from the Kalamazoo College in Michigan, spent a year abroad at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal, and completed her Master's degree of Fine Art with honors from The Rhode Island School of Design in 1997. Mehretu has received numerous awards, including the The MacArthur Award (2005), The Berlin Prize: Guna S. Mundheim Fellowship at The American Academy in Berlin (2007) and the U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts Award (2015). A mid-career survey of Mehretu's work recently toured at LACMA (Los Angeles), High Museum (Atlanta) The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) and The Walker Museum of Art (Minneapolis) from 2019 to 2023. Her largest European solo exhibition to date entitled “Ensemble” opened March 17, 2024 at Palazzo Grassi in Venice.

Mehretu is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and The National Academy of Design. Her global representative is Marian Goodman Gallery. She also exhibits with White Cube, London, and Carlier Gebauer, Berlin.

Statement from the Jury for the 20th BMW Art Car.
Julie Mehretu was unanimously selected in 2018 by a jury of high-ranking representatives of the international art world to design the 20th BMW Art Car. The panel includes renowned curators and museum directors from various countries, including Koyo Kouoh, Executive Director and Chief Curator, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town; Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director of the Serpentine Galleries, London; and Cecilia Alemani, Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director and Chief Curator, High Line Art, New York.

On the occasion of the World Premiere of the BMW Art Car designed by Julie Mehretu in Paris, the jury members published the following statement: "We are thrilled with Julie's BMW Art Car! Okwui Enwezor had already coined the phrase ‘Dynamism in Form’ during our jury session and nothing applies better to her BMW M Hybrid V8 race car. Julie’s first three-dimensional work combines her aesthetics and formal language with the idea of the glitch and the blur, turning speed into a visceral experience. This energetic space is as fierce and competitive in racing as it is ambitious as a creative playground of the imagination. It not only pays homage to the art cars of Jenny Holzer and Frank Stella, but also spins a visual web from Mad Max to graffiti and street art that is unique within the series of BMW Art Cars."

The BMW M Hybrid V8.
The canvas for the 20th BMW Art Car is the BMW M Hybrid V8. The new race car from BMW M GmbH features a hybrid electric drivetrain system with approximately 640 hp, powered by a 4.0-litre V8 engine supported by an electric motor (top speed: up to 345 km/h or 215 mph, depending on the race track layout).

During this year’s official FIA World Endurance Championship races, the BMW M Hybrid V8 will take on high-calibre competition in the Hypercars category. The car will also compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans – the first BMW M Motorsport prototype to do so since the BMW V12 LMR, which won the classic race in 1999.

The BMW Art Car Collection.
Renowned artists from all over the world have participated in the BMW Art Car program since 1975. The initiative came from the French racing driver and art lover Hervé Poulain, who, together with the then BMW Head of Motorsport Jochen Neerpasch, asked his artist friend Alexander Calder to paint a car. The result was a BMW 3.0 CSL, which competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1975 and became a crowd favourite.

This was the birth of the BMW Art Car Collection. In the years that followed, renowned artists such as Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Esther Mahlangu, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Ólafur Elíasson and Jeff Koons enriched the collection with further BMW Art Cars, each in their own individual style. Most recently, the Chinese multimedia artist Cao Fei and American conceptual artist John Baldessari each presented a BMW Art Car based on the BMW M6 GT3 and GTLM respectively in 2016 and 2017. The BMW Art Cars are not only shown at their home, the BMW Museum in Munich, but are also on tour around the world as part of international exhibitions.

Munich/Los Angeles. The BMW Group presents a fusion of art and innovation at the Frieze Los Angeles art fair in the form of the BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA. The one-of-a-kind vehicle combines colour-change technology developed by BMW with the artistic language of South African artist Esther Mahlangu. The designer piece, with sections of attached film that can be electronically animated, embodies the latest development in colour-change technology for vehicle surfaces in cooperation with E Ink. The BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA celebrates its world premiere at the fair opening on 29 February. The contemporary tribute recalls the BMW Art Car designed by Mahlangu in 1991. “The BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA honours the history of the BMW brand and continues the story of our global cultural engagement in a unique way. It combines art and design through progressive technology. Here, technology itself becomes art,” says Adrian van Hooydonk, head of BMW Group Design.

In 1991, Mahlangu designed the 12th BMW Art Car, based on a BMW 525i – becoming the first woman and first African artist to do so. “Her art inspired me years ago, back when the concept of colour change on a car was just an idea in my head,” says Stella Clarke, Research Engineer Open Innovations at the BMW Group. „Now, being able to realise this idea, and work with Esther Mahlangu, is absolutely surreal.” The 88-year-old artist’s signature colours and geometric patterns are perfect for bringing the innovative Flow technology to life in the BMW i5. The versatility of the electrophoretic colour changes makes the fully-electric sedan a dynamic work of art. “It is fascinating to me to see how modern technology can expand my art and make it accessible to a completely new audience,” says Mahlangu.

Mahlangu’s art meets cutting-edge technology.
In the BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA, which is named after Mahlangu’s first son, sections of film that can be electronically animated are applied, with two strips each across the roof, bonnet and rear section, as well as the vehicle’s sides. Like an e-book reader, there are several million microcapsules in each E Ink film. The structure and arrangement of the colour particles they contain can be changed by applying an electric voltage. This allows the typical colours and patterns of Mahlangu’s art to be generated in constantly changing compositions.

The animations are also accompanied by an equally extraordinary sound, specially composed by Renzo Vitale, the BMW Group's Creative Director, Sound, for the BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA. To combine the soundscape of the BMW brand with that of the South African Ndebele culture, Vitale used sequences from Mahlangu’s voice, as well as the sound of the feather brushes she used for painting. These were combined with sounds produced by the colour pencils employed in the BMW design studio and the acoustic signal heard as feedback when operating the BMW i5’s touch display. This created a sound mix that starts off softly at the beginning of each colour change and increases in intensity as the animation progresses.

To accurately recreate every detail of the complex ornamentation, the BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA has been fitted with 1,349 sections of film, each of which can be individually controlled. The laser cutting process used to trim the film and the electronic control design were developed in partnership with E Ink. The adaptation of the technology for curved surfaces, as well as the programmed animations, are all BMW Group in-house developments.

Overall, colour-change technology is developing rapidly. The BMW iX Flow featuring E Ink presented in 2022 had the ability to switch from white to black at the push of a button. This was followed just one year later by the first multi-coloured implementation. The 240 sections of film applied to BMW i Vision Dee were able to display up to 32 colours. This latest phase of development now enables even more colours and patterns. At the same time, the sections of the film are more robust – which could make potential future series production easier. However, for the time being, the BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA will remain one of a kind.

Tribute to a pioneering artist and her work.
As a globally respected artist, Esther Mahlangu is known for her Ndebele paintings, whose ornamentation originally symbolised major events or festive occasions. Mahlangu separated the designs from their original meaning and transferred them for the first time to canvas, carpets and everyday objects, thus preserving them for the future. The BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA is now reinterpreting this artistic language.

In presenting this designer car at Frieze Los Angeles, BMW continues its long-standing cooperation with the renowned art fair. At the same time, the BMW Art Car that formed the basis for this tribute will also be on display in South Africa for the first time in over 30 years as part of the exhibition hosted by the Iziko Museums of South Africa and the BMW Group in Cape Town “Then I Knew I Was Good at Painting”: Esther Mahlangu. A Retrospective. The exhibition, which runs until 11 August 2024, honours the life’s work of one of South Africa’s most influential artists and cultural ambassadors.

In Los Angeles, BMW will once again be presenting Frieze Music in collaboration with Frieze. Since 2019, the joint initiative between the two partners has brought together a large group of musicians at the intersection of music and art. The event’s return to Los Angeles will be celebrated on 29 February with a live performance by Sudan Archives at the Hammer Museum.


If you have any questions, please contact:

BMW Group South Africa Corporate Communications

Angela Konert

Head of Business Communications

Phone: +27 71 666 2472

Email: Angela.Konert@bmw.co.za

https://newsroom.bmwgroup.com/global/en

New York/Munich. Julie Mehretu presents her first design studies for the 20th BMW Art Car. For this project, the internationally renowned artist combines her artistic work with a personal enthusiasm for automotive design and speed. She translates dynamism into form and applies one of her monumental motifs from a two-dimensional picture plane onto a three-dimensional industrially designed object. In the course of this creative process, the BMW M Hybrid V8 racing car prototype becomes the canvas of Mehretu's multi-layered art and the next addition to the legendary BMW Art Car Collection. The 20th BMW Art Car will celebrate its official world premiere at the Centre Pompidou in Paris on May 21, 2024, before competing a few weeks later in the 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 15/16.

Fusion of image motif and racing car creates art on wheels.
For the design of the 20th BMW Art Car, Julie Mehretu uses the colour and form vocabulary of an existing large-format painting from a more recent series of works: obscured photographs, dotted grids, neon-coloured spray paint and Mehretu's iconic gestural markings give her design an abstract visual form. She transfers the resulting image motif as a high-resolution photograph onto the vehicle's contours using a 3D mapping technique. This creates the unique artistic foiling with which the BMW M Hybrid V8 will compete in the Le Mans race. Mehretu on her process: "It wasn't until after going to the 24 Hours race in Daytona last year that the idea of how to approach the BMW Art Car really crystallised. I was thinking about Frank Stella's grid and how this could also be a shout-out to former BMW Art Car artists. And I kept thinking of this painting in my studio that I had just finished and the model of the Art Car was in my studio and I thought maybe we can try to have the car move through this painting."

For the first time, Julie Mehretu, whose work will be presented this year within a major retrospective at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice from March 17, is working with BMW on a three-dimensional format. The interplay of the surfaces and geometry of the vehicle creates a remix of elements of her painting and opens up new perspectives for the artist in her creative process. "The creative play of what you can do in this new three-dimensional space and how many imaginations and inventions are played out to build it is highly instructive. It is not just the car itself but the designers and their deliberations as well as and foremost the drivers and their desires and aspirations which make it become this place of dreams where painting, conceptual art, aerodynamics, speed and aesthetics can participate,” says Mehretu.

In accordance with the regulations of the FIA, the 3D version of the artwork can only be applied to the BMW M Hybrid V8 with a film wrap. For this, Julie Mehretu is working closely with the German Race Spirit team led by Manuel Eberl and Gertraud Brenninger to design the 20th BMW Art Car. Race Spirit was already involved in realising the design created by Jeff Koons for the 17th BMW Art Car.

From the museum to the race track - and back again.
In keeping with the long tradition of the BMW Art Car Collection, the artistically designed vehicle will be presented to the public for the first time in an internationally renowned museum on May 21. As with the world premieres of the BMW Art Cars by Roy Lichtenstein (1977) and Jeff Koons (2010), the unveiling will take place at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. That same week, the artwork will be part of the program of the Concorso d'Eleganza at the Villa d'Este in Cernobbio (May 24-26).

The close connection between art and motorsport is also an integral part of the history of the BMW Art Car Collection. The very first BMW Art Car, designed by Alexander Calder in 1975, made its dynamic debut at the Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans. As the 20th BMW Art Car, Julie Mehretu's vehicle will compete at Le Mans with starting number 20 and will be driven by BMW works drivers Sheldon van der Linde (RSA), Robin Frijns (NED) and René Rast (GER) in the 24 Hours of Le Mans from June 15 to 16, 2024. The artist will also design the racing suits in which they will compete at Le Mans.

"The prospect of competing in a BMW Art Car at the 24 Hours of Le Mans is an additional incentive for the entire M Motorsport team to prepare the BMW M Hybrid V8 as perfectly as possible for this big stage," says Franciscus van Meel, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW M GmbH. "In the 100th year of the race's existence and 25 years after BMW's last victory at Le Mans, winning there with a BMW Art Car would be the greatest possible success for all of us.”

Following its race at Le Mans, the 20th BMW Art Car will also become an exhibit that will be presented to the public in museums and on art platforms worldwide. However, Julie Mehretu's approach goes far beyond the vehicle as a stand-alone artistic work.

Workshops with young creatives in numerous African cities.
A central component of the project is the PanAfricanTranslocal Media Workshop Series on the African continent, which will continue the collaboration between Julie Mehretu and BMW in 2025. Together with Mehret Mandefro, Emmy-nominated producer, writer and co-founder of the Realness Institute, which works to strengthen the media ecosystem across Africa, the artist will host workshops in eight African cities over the course of nine months to provide artists with a space for encounters, exchange and collaboration. The results of the workshops will then be presented at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town – together with the 20th BMW Art Car. An important partner for the conception of the programme is the artist residency Denniston Hill in Upstate New York, founded in 2004 by Julie Mehretu, Lawrence Chua and Paul Pfeiffer.

Julie Mehretu was unanimously chosen to design the 20th BMW Art Car in 2018 by a jury of high-ranking representatives of the international art world. The panel includes renowned curators and museum directors from various countries, including Koyo Kouoh, Executive Director and Chief Curator, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town; Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director of the Serpentine Galleries, London; and Cecilia Alemani, Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director and Chief Curator, High Line Art, New York. Like all the artists involved in the creation of the BMW Art Car Collection since 1975 – including Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, César Manrique, Esther Mahlangu, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Cao Fei and John Baldessari, in addition to those already mentioned – Julie Mehretu was given unrestricted creative freedom in the realization of her ideas for the latest vehicle of this globally unique collection.

The BMW Group's Cultural Engagement with exclusive updates and deeper insights into its global initiatives can be followed on Instagram at @BMWGroupCulture.

London/ Munich. BMW and Frieze continue their long-term partnership with BMW Open Work by Frieze, the annual major art initiative. In 2023, Marseille-based artist Sara Sadik will debut a film and video game conceived for the new BMW i5 at KOKO in Camden Town. The pioneering multi-platform format, curated by Attilia Fattori Franchini is bringing together art, technology and design.

Both works will premiere during Frieze London, which runs October 11-15, 2023. This year the fair celebrates its 20th anniversary with its most international edition to date and an extensive programme of cultural collaborations and events, including the BMW Open Work format.

Attilia Fattori Franchini (Curator, BMW Open Work) said: “I couldn’t be more excited to work with Sara Sadik, whose practice carefully investigates and mines the intersection of art, gaming and digital technology. Sadik’s project for BMW Open Work 2023 - a video game specially conceived for the BMW i5, using the car as a unique experiential device, and a film to play in the BMW lounge - brings the program in a wholly new direction. I can’t wait for this project to take over the spaces of KOKO, reinforcing Frieze and BMW’s joint commitment to experimental artistic practices.”

Sadik’s video and performance practice lies halfway between fiction and documentary. Drawing on video games, anime, science fiction and French rap, the artist creates initiatory stories that centre characters striving to achieve moral and physical transformation. Her commission at Frieze London comprises an interactive playable game, conceived specifically for the new, fully electric BMW i5 in collaboration with BMW Gaming and Innovation Lab experts, as well as a video presented both on the exterior of KOKO and in the BMW Lounge. BMW i5 designers will support Sadik in the technical conception of the game and extending the gaming experience in the car through sound and light.

Titled LA POTION (EH), Sadik’s commission utilises computer-generated scenarios to investigate the changing emotional states of young male characters. Her world-building renders their emotions visible while investigating the construction and performance of masculinity, its ethical and moral codes, and what it reveals about societal structures more broadly.

Sadik succeeds Nikita Gale (2022), Madeline Hollander (2020-21), Camille Blatrix (2019), Sam Lewitt (2018) and Olivia Erlanger (2017) as the artist chosen for the BMW Open Work initiative.

BMW Open Work by Frieze
BMW Open Work by Frieze is an annual joint initiative that brings together art, technology and design in a pioneering multi-platform format. Each year since 2017, BMW Open Work by Frieze invites an artist to create a visionary project inspired by technology, engineering prowess and BMW Design that explores current and future technologies as a vehicle for innovation and artistic experimentation.

Further information can be found at https://www.frieze.com/bmw-open-work

Munich/New York. BMW announced a collaboration today at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City with internationally renowned New York-based artist Julie Mehretu to create the 20th BMW Art Car. Mehretu was unanimously chosen by an international jury of museum directors and curators, and will be given total creative freedom to design the next instalment in BMW’s legendary collection of ”rolling sculptures”. BMW will enter Mehretu’s BMW M Hybrid V8 Art Car in the 24 Hour race of Le Mans in June 2024. This continues an almost 50-year tradition that has delighted not only motorsport enthusiasts but anyone into design or the arts, technology and mobility. Since 1975, artists such as Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jenny Holzer, Jeff Koons, Cao Fei, and John Baldessari have created racing cars for BMW.

“I've loved cars for most of my life, as toys, as objects, as possibilities. It is from that space that I'm really excited to be working on the next BMW Art Car more than anything,” stated Julie Mehretu. “The thrill of the speed, the 24 Hour race of Le Mans and what is possible to invent in hybrid and fully electric vehicles as future modes of play and pushing ahead into new terrains of transportation and motorsports.”

”The BMW Art Car Collection is a central element of our global cultural commitment, which has been in place for more than 50 years," said Ilka Horstmeier, Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, Human Resources and Real Estate, at the presentation in New York. ”The combination of technology and art, of design and motorsport sparks a timeless fascination. I have admired Julie Mehretu's work for many years. I am particularly pleased that our cooperation will have a lasting cultural impact beyond the vehicle she has designed, especially in Africa.”

An artistic concept beyond the car: Translocal Media Workshop Series in 2025
The collaboration between BMW and Julie Mehretu will not only leave its mark on the Le Mans racetrack.

There are far and few spaces on the continent of Africa where artists can convene, exchange, and experiment in ways that foster collaboration across local contexts. Julie Mehretu and Mehret Mandefro, Emmy-nominated producer, writer and co-founder of the Realness Institute which aims to strengthen the media ecosystem across Africa, will host a series of gatherings in eight African cities over the course of nine months to open up space for artists to meet, exchange, and collaborate in translocal ways. These workshops have the sole intention of opening up a forum for the artists to consider new pathways to implementing just civic futures in their respective local communities and harness the power of the translocal collective.

The methodology of these workshops is based on the Exodus Media Workshop (EMW) which is an arts education laboratory initiated by Denniston Hill that focuses on the inter-dependent inventions of image making and representation in the media. The workshop begins from the shared intention that we must disentangle self-being from its mediated depiction, and that our identities can be reclaimed and reshaped by our own standards.

The outcome and results of the workshops will be presented together with the 20th BMW Art Car at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town in 2025.

The artist.
Julie Mehretu was born in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, in 1970. Together with her family she moved to the USA at the age of seven. She received her B.A. from Kalamazoo College, Michigan, graduated from The Rhode Island School of Design with a Masters of Fine Arts degree in 1997, and also spent a year studying at Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar Senegal. In exploring palimpsests of history, from geological time to a modern-day phenomenology of the social, her paintings, prints and drawings engage the viewer in a dynamic visual articulation of contemporary experience, a depiction of social behavior and the psychogeography of space. 

Mehretu has been running a studio in New York since 1999. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the MacArthur Award and the US Department of State Medal of Arts Award. A representative survey of her work has been exhibited at LACMA (Los Angeles), the High Museum (Atlanta), the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), and the Walker Museum of Art (Minneapolis) from 2019 to 2023. In 2021, Julie Mehretu became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Design.

Julie Mehretu is represented globally by Marian Goodman Gallery, and also exhibits with White Cube, London, and Carlier Gebauer, Berlin.

Statements of the jury. Unanimous nomination.
Julie Mehretu was unanimously chosen to design the 20^th BMW Art Car in 2018 by an international jury from the art world with an outstanding reputation based on their experience and expertise in leading positions at major museums and galleries. It is composed of the following personalities:

• Cecilia Alemani, Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director and Chief Curator, High Line Art, New York
• Richard Armstrong, Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, New York
• Anton Belov, Director, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow
• Anita Dube, artist and curator Kochi-Muziris-Biennale 2018
• Yilmaz Dziewior, Director, Museum Ludwig, Cologne
• Okwui Enwezor (1963 – 2019), former Director, Haus der Kunst, Munich 
• Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director, New Museum, New York
• Madeleine Grynsztejn, Pritzker Director, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
• Koyo Kouoh, Executive Director and Chief Curator, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town
• Matthias Mühling, Director, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau, Munich
• Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Serpentine Galleries, London
• Hervé Poulain, Initiator BMW Art Car Collection and CEO Artcurial
• Stephanie Rosenthal, Director, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi

Madeleine Grynsztejn, Pritzker Director, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago:
“Julie Mehretu is the perfect artist for this early 21st century. To merge her work with the shape and form of a speeding vehicle is really an alignment of perfection. For years, Julie has painted speed and for a long time worked very successfully at scale. This means to me that she will be able to create a form that you can see from a distance because with many of her large commissions, you need to back up to really enjoy them. She has an understanding of space and speed that is a perfect partner to the BMW Art Car.”

Koyo Kouoh, Executive Director and Chief Curator, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town:
“I think that Julie Mehretu’s practice combines a sprawling visuality with a political background. She will be the perfect artist to really moderate this tension about race, technology, car, velocity and bring it into a form that is legible for the wider public.”

Okwui Enwezor (1963 - 2019), former Director, Haus der Kunst, Munich:
“Julie Mehretu’s work incapsulates different questions of movement. She expresses dynamism within a form. It is a very clear and sound understanding of how the object acts in space. And I think this really makes it a very exciting proposition to have an artist of her calibre who has the long-standing experience to take on this project.”

Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Serpentine Galleries, London:
“Julie Mehretu creates paintings which very often go beyond the canvas. Her practice is very interdisciplinary and of course, that’s exactly what will happen with the BMW Art Car. The artists do not just develop ideas alone in their studio, but in dialogue with many people in the company and particularly with the engineers, the inventors and the designers.”

Cecilia Alemani, Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director and Chief Curator, High Line Art, New York:
“I think Julie is a wonderful artist who has been able to bring the three-dimensionality of our reality into the two-dimensionality of paintings and flat surfaces. She is someone that has been looking at our cities, the speed of our culture, vectors and velocity and these are all themes that resonate with the BMW Art Car. Her project for the BMW Art Car will be compelling and bring together all these aspects into this wonderful platform.”

Stephanie Rosenthal, Director, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi:
“Julie Mehretu is mainly known for large-scale two-dimensional works which are based on speed, space, creating and imagining space. And so now working with the BMW Art Car really will extend, I think, her experience of working with a three-dimensional object and kind of implementing her idea of space, and also probably become a form of futurist architecture exploring technology. And, therefore, I think she’s a brilliant pick.”

The BMW M Hybrid V8.
The canvas for the 20th BMW Art Car is the BMW M Hybrid V8. BMW M GmbH's new competition car in endurance racing features a hybrid drive system with around 640 hp, whose 4.0-liter V8 engine is supported by an electric motor (max speed: up to 345 kph/215 mph, depending on track layout). This makes the prototype race car, which weighs just 1,030 kilograms, the poster child for typical M performance and the fascination with electrified drives.

The BMW M Hybrid V8 is currently competing successfully in the GTP (Grand Touring Prototype) class of the North American IMSA endurance racing series. BMW M Motorsport will also return to the FIA World Endurance Championship in the 2024 season. In the races for the official FIA World Endurance Championship, the BMW M Hybrid V8 will face top-class competition in the Hypercars category. This means that the BMW M Hybrid V8 will also be competing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans – the first BMW M Motorsport prototype since the BMW V12 LMR won the classic in 1999.

The BMW Art Car Collection.
Since 1975, renowned artists from all over the world have been designing BMW Art Cars. The initiative came from French racing driver and art lover Hervé Poulain, who, in collaboration with then Head of BMW Motorsport Jochen Neerpasch, asked his artist friend Alexander Calder to paint an automobile. The result was a BMW 3.0 CSL that competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1975, where it became a crowd favorite. This was the birth of the BMW Art Car Collection.

In the years that followed, renowned artists such as Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Esther Mahlangu, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Ólafur Elíasson and Jeff Koons added further BMW Art Cars to the collection, each in their own individual style. Most recently, Chinese multimedia artist Cao Fei and American John Baldessari each presented a BMW Art Car based on the BMW M6 GT3 in 2016 and 2017. The BMW Art Cars are not only shown at their home, the BMW Museum in Munich, but also travel around the world as part of international exhibitions.

Munich/Basel. On the occasion of Art Basel in Basel 2023, BMW proudly presents “The Electric AI Canvas” an extension of the entirely virtual work "The Ultimate AI Masterpiece". Now, for the very first time, released as an awe-inspiring physical art experience that transforms the 100% electric BMW i5 into a dynamic canvas of distinct generative art and featuring works by contemporary artists Esther Mahlangu, Kohei Nawa, Eric N. Mack, Koo Jiyoon and Bin Woo Hyuk. “The Electric AI Canvas” will be exhibited from June 12 to 18, 2023, at Art Basel in Basel, the world's premier art show for Modern and contemporary art. Additionally, as a global partner of the Art Basel shows, BMW will once again provide the VIP car service.

In collaboration with creative technologist Nathan Shipley (Goodby, Silverstein & Partners) and Gary Yeh (ArtDrunk), custom artificial intelligence-generated animations are crafted using AI models trained on a curated dataset of works from renowned contemporary artists. These AI models are built upon a foundational model trained from over 50,000 images spanning 900 years of art history. The AI generates entirely new abstract animations based on learned styles from classical and contemporary art, which are then projected onto the BMW i5.

“BMW has been at the forefront of innovative technology and design to create cutting-edge automobiles. With 'The Electric AI Canvas,' virtual and physical worlds collide, and the connection between human senses and artificial intelligence as a tool to create new artworks can be experienced,” says Paul de Courtois, President & CEO BMW (Switzerland) inc.

According to Gary Yeh, "This is an exciting moment to build on our previous art and AI collaboration, which we had always envisioned activating in person. Realizing this collaboration's full potential will create a unique opportunity for art fair visitors to experience digital art, a medium that can often feel disconnected from the physical world. At the forefront of contemporary art, the artists that we've brought together bring a variety of global perspectives and share in their unique explorations of materials and culture. As the animations evolve in front of your eyes, we hope to take you on a journey through their worlds and how they represent the fabric of our society. Past, present, and future."

For “The Electric AI Canvas”, Nvidia’s AI architecture StyleGAN is trained to evoke various artistic styles and then generate abstract evolving animations. After training a base model to represent art in general, StyleGAN is further trained on works from the participating contemporary artists. “We wanted to explore what happens when an AI image-generation model encounters works by specific artists; how do the results change when different parameters of the algorithm are modified and how can we use that to create animations that evoke the essential feeling of a particular artist’s work,” asks Nathan Shipley. “We see experiments like this as part of a fascinating early conversation about ways that AI can be used in art-making.”

These newly created animations are now showcased for the first time as an on-site art experience employing projection-mapping onto the BMW i5 and shifting through each artist's distinctive style and aesthetic. The animations are amplified and reflected by mirrors, immersing viewers within the experience.

Since the digital debut in 2020, AI in art-making has stirred controversy, raising questions about ethics, creativity and authenticity. Shipley and Yeh approach the use of AI for art by focusing on how the technology can support artists and amplify their artistic visions, rather than to replace them. “It is essential that our experiments with AI for art are done in a responsible, thoughtful, and human-first way,” says Shipley.

This human-machine art installation brings forth a distinct convergence of innovation and creativity. It continues BMW's engagement in crucial dialogues about technology and art in the AI era. Beyond visual artistry, the Electric AI Canvas stands as a testament to BMW's dedication to human-centred technology and sustainability, exploring the potential of AI as a creative tool.

The new BMW 5 Series – the world´s most successful business sedan – is digital, dynamic and now, with the BMW i5, also fully electric. In the BMW 5 Series come together sporty elegance, comfort and premium connectivity. Like no other model, THE 5 stands for confidence, competence and a progressive mindset.

For its 2023 edition in Basel, Art Basel will bring together 284 leading international galleries to present the highest quality artworks across all media – from painting and sculpture to photography and digital works – by artists ranging from early-twentieth-century Modern pioneers to contemporary practitioners. A strong line-up of galleries from across Europe will be joined by new and returning exhibitors from around the world.

Munich/ Budapest. On the occasion of the launch of the all-new BMW i7 in Hungary, a special photo-shooting took place of the electric luxury limousine at the Opera House, which also hallmarks the strengthening of the partnership.

To celebrate the launch of the all-new BMW i7 electric luxury limousine in Hungary, BMW Group Hungary has created an exclusive photo series with the BMW novelty on the stage of the Opera House. The Ybl Palace on Andrássy Avenue reopened its doors in March this year after a complete renovation, thus the stage and auditorium were given a never-before-seen splendour and dimension for this special photo shoot. The BMW i7, the pinnacle of BMW's range, is the epitome of progressive luxury, and its stunning looks put it in the spotlight on the more than 700 square metre Opera House stage. The BMW i7 was shown through the lens of three photographers before its official market premiere in a variety of lights, settings and instrument themes.

The cultural cooperation between OPERA and BMW Group Hungary has been ongoing for more than 7 years, with numerous exclusive, elegant and creative photo shootings, events and activities marking the partnership. After last summer's joint image shoot, the launch of the new BMW i7 provided the opportunity for the BMW brand to once again be the protagonist in an art project.

"The BMW Group Hungary is committed to supporting a number of cultural initiatives in Hungary, the most prominent of which is the cooperation with OPERA, launched in February 2015. We have been working with the OPERA team and my dedicated colleagues for almost 8 years on this strategic partnership, which I believe is unique in the country and even in our broader region. Now, it is clear that supporting high culture needs many years to mature, but today the partnership between OPERA and BMW is very well known and respected, extremely valuable, and also fits perfectly into our international Art & Culture programme, that the BMW Group has been cultivating for over 50 years with more than 100 partner institutions worldwide. The design of the new BMW i7 model, its sculptural character, its silent and emission-free glide, its technical excellence, is a perfect combination of innovative power and tradition. I am very proud that we can now present it in one of the most beautiful locations in Budapest. The BMW Group’s commitment in the fields of art and culture are an integral part of our social responsibility and we are very much looking forward to work together on exciting projects in the future," said Zoltán Gombos, Managing Director of BMW Group Hungary, at the photo shoot.

Istanbul. Internationally renowned for his colorful paintings as well as his iconic animal balloon sculptures made of stainless steel and drawing attention to popular culture and everyday objects, Jeff Koons, one of today's most influential contemporary artists, visited Istanbul for the first time as the guest of Borusan Holding and BMW Türkiye. Koons participated in Contemporary Istanbul with his design of the BMW M850i xDrive Gran Coupé which was produced in 99 units worldwide.

Hakan Tiftik, Chief Executive Officer of Borusan Otomotiv, highlighted that Borusan Holding and BMW have always supported art. Tiftik underlined that BMW Türkiye, for which Borusan Otomotiv is the distributor in Turkey, has been a partner of Contemporary Istanbul for many years and the event is among the leading contemporary art events of the country. He continued his words as follows: “Borusan Group, which also includes Borusan Otomotiv, continues to be a supporter of culture and art activities since it was established. In this context, Borusan Group also owns Borusan Contemporary Art Collection which is one of the major contemporary art collections of Türkiye. The company’s current activities on art continues under the umbrella of 'Borusan Contemporary' at Perili Köşk building which also serves as the headquarters of Borusan Holding. BMW is also among the most important supporters of these events with its partnerships and sponsorships in many art disciplines in various countries across the globe. As BMW Türkiye, we also support significant partnerships and sponsorship activities in Türkiye. Last year, we supported the world-renowned Turkish media artist Refik Anadol's personal exhibition 'Machine Memoirs: Space' which welcomed the art-lovers in Istanbul at Pilevneli Dolapdere. This year, a multi-disciplinary artist, Can Büyükberber introduced his work Monolit at CI Bloom, which offered a unique audio-visual experience, taking inspiration from the new BMW iX. And today, we are having the pleasure of hosting Jeff Koons in Istanbul with his spectacular BMW M850i design.”

In the press conference at which Hakan Tiftik also participated, Jeff Koons shared his excitement for being in Istanbul and talked about the collaboration with BMW and the design of his BMW M850i xDrive Gran Coupé which he describes as a "Dream Car". Koons said: "I am proud to see myself as part of the BMW family. In the past, it was a great honor for me to be invited to designing an Art Car for BMW. Seeing my Art Car at the 24 Hour Race at Le Mans was a truly exciting moment. I'm very happy to have found another opportunity to work with BMW. THE 8 X Jeff Koons has been a great project for me. I thought about it deeply. What is the essence of the BMW M850i, and what is the essence of power? I had been in search of the answers to these questions. The power of an automobile is not only represented by its engine or engineering but also by the human being within the car. When designing the BMW M850, I tried to create a sporty and luxury sedan model that represents the power and energy of the automobile. It was a great opportunity for me."

BMW is enchanted with the work of Jeff Koons: “For over 50 years the company has been celebrating the arts and bold voices of our time through hundreds of cultural initiatives worldwide. Being able to work closely with Jeff Koons once again, making his ‘Dream Car’ come true has been a source of inspiration for everyone working at the BMW headquarters and at the Dingolfing factory in Germany. Throughout the history of the company, no other BMW has been created which required a design as comprehensive as of the THE 8 X JEFF KOONS. Moreover, this edition will not only be exhibited in museums but also as unique BMW car driving on the streets. “

'Dream Car' BMW M850i Enchanted both the Art-Lovers and Automobile Enthusiasts

BMW M850i xDrive Gran Coupé design described by Jeff Koons as a 'Dream Car', manufactured in a limited number of 99 world-wide, generated great interest from contemporary art enthusiasts as well as automobile fans. The car was painted by hand in over 200 hours per car by alternating teams consisting of thousands of designers and engineers. Its colors range from blue to silver and from yellow to black.

Ali Güreli and Jeff Koons Came Together at Artist Talk

Ali Güreli, Chairperson of the Board of Contemporary Istanbul, who accompanied Jeff Koons on the fairgrounds, also invited the fair visitors to a  public talk with the artist. During the talk whereby the current status of contemporary art in the world and in Türkiye was assessed, they discussed the direction of the art industry leading from the West towards the East, digital architecture, new technologies influencing the art of Koons, art fields of the future and Jeff Koons being inspired by Istanbul.

About Jeff Koons

Jeff Koons was born in 1955 in York, Pennsylvania. He attended Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since his first solo exhibition in 1980, Koons' work has been displayed in major galleries and institutions around the world, making the artist a world-renowned name.

Koons is best known for his iconic Rabbit and Balloon Dog sculptures, as well as the monumental flower sculpture Puppy (1992), displayed at Rockefeller Center and permanently installed at the Guggenheim, Bilbao.

Jeff Koons has received numerous awards and honors in recognition of his cultural achievements. Notably, Koons received the Governor’s Awards for the Arts “Distinguished Arts Award” from the Pennsylvania Council on the Art; President Jacques Chirac promoted Koons to Officier de la Legion d’Honneur; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton honored Koons with the State Department’s Medal of the Arts for his outstanding commitment to the Art in Embassies Program and international cultural exchange; and Consul General Ragini Gupta presented Koons the U.S. Consulate General’s Award for Cultural Diplomacy in Florence. In 2017, Koons was made the first Artist-in-Residence at Columbia University’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and, also, made an Honorary Member of University of Oxford's Edgar Wind Society for Outstanding Contribution for Visual Culture. Koons has been a board member of The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC) since 2002 and co-founded the Koons Family International Law and Policy Institute with ICMEC; for the purpose of combating global issues of child abduction and exploitation and to protect the world’s children.

Munich/Miami Beach. BMW is again official partner of Art Basel in Miami Beach in 2021. In the latest chapter of the partnership, BMW held the official world premiere of an all-new concept vehicle, the BMW Concept XM, on Monday, November 29 in Miami Beach. As longstanding global partner of the shows in Basel, Miami Beach and Hong Kong, BMW once again offers its VIP shuttle service and celebrates 50 years of BMW Group Cultural Engagement with the presentation of the new BMW XM concept car together with the artist Kennedy Yanko and hip-hop legend NAS.         

The BMW Concept XM, an all-new standalone concept vehicle by BMW M, was debuted at a special event on Monday, November 29 at Herzog & de Meuron’s famous 1111 Lincoln Road parking deck in Miami Beach, Florida. The vehicle embodies a radically new concept: a zero-compromise BMW M with striking BMW X design language including the new, progressive front-end design of BMW’s forthcoming luxury-class models which can be seen on the BMW Concept XM for the first time.

The world premiere treated guests to the concept vehicle debut, a sculpture of art specially created by Kennedy Yanko for the event, and a special musical performance by GRAMMY-award winning hip-hop and recording artist NAS. Creative freedom and partnership at eye level are essential for BMW Group’s cultural engagement.

“This moment of co-creation between visual art and music by Kennedy Yanko and NAS brings together two cultural fields that have inspired each other for many decades and are two main areas of BMW brand cooperations,” said Stefan Ponikva, Head of BMW Brand Communication and Experience. “It all started with a dialogue with our designers around the BMW Concept XM and this exchange on eye-level is what makes our collaborations authentic. And Art Basel as the most renowned art fair with plenty creative and expressive minds across the disciplines, offers us the perfect platform to present our latest cultural engagement.“

“Art Basel in Miami Beach is the perfect moment to launch the BMW Concept XM, a product unlike anything we’ve ever produced,” said Uwe Dreher, vice president of marketing, BMW of North America. “This unique concept vehicle is matched perfectly to the expressive artwork from our partner artists, underscoring BMW Group’s five-decade long commitment to supporting culture and the arts in meaningful ways.”

Kennedy Yanko is a Brooklyn, New York-based artist and sculptor. Using the BMW Concept XM as inspiration, she created an original sculpture work utilized in the activation. The piece was inspired by a creative dialogue with NAS starting point of which was the encounter of the artists with the BMW Concept XM. “Intrinsic Sage”, as the artwork is called, joins paint skin and metal in a surge of intuition. Created with the artist's spirit in mind, this piece emphasizes the power that comes from following one's creative impulse towards innovation. Its namesake nods towards the sanctity of a deep consciousness that can only come from trusting one’s innate knowing. “Intrinsic Sage” will be on display alongside the BMW Concept XM at the Miami Beach convention center at the north side of the Grand Ballroom Level 2 from December 1-4.

Besides the recent artist collaboration on the occasion of Art Basel in Miami Beach, Art Basel and BMW founded the BMW Art Journey in 2015 – an initiative to support emerging to mid-career artists. The BMW Art Journey can take an artist almost anywhere in the world – to research, to network, to envision and to create new work. After the journey through Europe and Mexico of BMW Art Journey winner 2020, Leelee Chan, BMW presents the collectable of the sculptor summarizing her experiences and impression from her journey “Tokens from Time.” The book is published by Hatje Cantz and available online.

Since more than 50 years after its first edition, Art Basel has become one of the artworld’s leading events, attracting gallerists, artists, curators, journalists, and art lovers from all over the globe edition after edition. BMW Group is delighted to take part in this success story as a long-term partner of the shows in Basel, Miami Beach and Hong Kong. The BMW Group laid the foundation of its cultural commitment in 1971. At that time the artists Gerhard Richter was commissioned to create three large-scale paintings for the entrance hall of the new Munich corporate headquarters. Since then, a hundred long-term cultural initiatives of the BMW Group in the fields of modern and contemporary art, classical music, jazz and sound as well as in architecture and design have been well established throughout the decades. BMW Group was receiving manifold congratulatory messages to celebrate 50 years of BMW Group’s cultural engagement.

More information about the BMW Concept XM can be found at BMW USA News and the BMW Group PressClub.

For further questions please contact:
Prof. Dr Thomas Girst
BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs
Global Head of Cultural Engagement BMW Group
Telephone: +49-89-382-24753
Email: Thomas.Girst@bmwgroup.com

https://newsroom.bmwgroup.com/global/en 
Email: presse@bmw.de

Sarah Degen
Art Basel
Senior Media Relations Manager
Email: press@artbasel.com

The show-installation “Who Am I? A human-robot performance”, developed by the team of the art and technology studio H3, debuted in the selection of Ars Electronica, the most important art and technology festival in the world. BMW 4 Series Coupé, one of the most sophisticated and emotionally charged models of the brand, made its presence felt in a special installation during the event, more than a month before the official debut on the market, on October 24.

The debut of “Who Am I” was presented in the multidisciplinary project, H3 Garden simultaneously with the exhibition of interactive lighting installations and the series of live concerts Kaustik Nights. The event also marked or parted: the "Silk Industry" industrial space from the communist period, located in the heart of Bucharest and regained for cultural projects, is to be demolished to make way for new commercial and residential areas. Until now, Popa Nan 82 has been the space for the creation, production and presentation of art installations created by the H3 team.

“Who Am I? A human-robot performance” is a unique show-installation that combines in contemporary, theater and lighting installations with a unique protagonist – Kuka – an industrial robot that weighs a ton and a half and was previously used in production process at the BMW plant in Regensburg (Germany). The project speaks through spectacular visual constructions about the connection between creator and creation, about the search for identity, about how objects can acquire identity and life. The myth of Pygamlion is one of the main points of inspiration. At the center is Kuka, in an incredible transformation of the industrial robot into an emotional performer with choreographer Andrea Gavriliu, offering a strong contrast between mechanical and organic. The 400 m2 H3 Gardens industrial hall, with the performance designed only for 35 spectators, added to the show intensity, providing the basis for a personal and imersive experience.

In this context, the new BMW 4 Series Coupé was presented in a lighting installation located next to the Kaustik Nights concert stage. The installation only hinted at the shapes of the new model, it was an invitation to discovery. “We are a German brand built on technology, engineering and performance. With a slogan that celebrates 45 years and speaks of joy – “The sheer driving pleasure” – we are also a brand built on emotions and experiences. The BMW 4 Series Coupé illustrates very well this combination of technological excellence and the driving pleasure. Ars Electronica, with a dialogue between art and technology, and “Who Am I? A human-robot performance”, with a robot that has become a performance artist, we have an excellent setting that allows us to show the two facets of our brand. We are very happy that we were able to be part of this project, especially since in the foreground is a former BMW employee”, explains Dr Josef Reiter, Managing Director of BMW Group Romania.

The new BMW 4 Series Coupé is a model defined by a bold design, dominated by a new front grille and a language of shapes with precisely contoured lines, but also harmoniously defined shape, almost organic. The unique design gives the new model a clear position in the BMW range, with a distinct identity. At the same time, the middle-class coupé has always been dedicated to driving pleasure, and the BMW 4 Series Coupé is perfectly prepared for this by specific proportions, perfect center of mass distribution, chassis rigidity, sophisticated TwinPower Turbo engine technology. But performance comes with respect for the environment: respecting the brand's sustainable development philosophy, power is delivered efficiently - all engines, except the top of the range petrol, the availability of 48V mild-hybrid technology and compliance with Euro 6d emissions standards.

The collaboration of BMW and “Who Am I? A human-robot performance” continues with the preparation of a short film about the meeting between creator and creation – this time with the Kuka robot in the position of creator, and BMW 4 Series Coupé as the object of creation. The project aims to explore the spectacular design of the new model in the emotionally charged space of “Who Am I? A human-robot performance” performance art, building on the double identity of the Kuka robot – from a production tool in a BMW factory to an artist.

Project Credits / Acknowledgements
Concept - H3 & Adrian Damian / Director and writer - Alexandru Berceanu / Scenography - Adrian Damian / Coreography - Andrea Gavrilu / Motion design - Andrei Mitișor, Sebastian Comănescu / Video design - Dilmana Yordanova, Ovidiu Eftimie / Light design - Cristian Șimon, Răzvan Pascu / Music & Sound Design featuring the voice of the artist - Kinga Ötvös / Costumes - Luiza Enescu / Performers: Andrea Gavrilu, Mădălina Ciotea, Vlad Bîrzanu, Anda Saltelechi, Meda Victor, Eduard Trifa / Video engineer - Silviu Bratosin, Luca Achim / Stage manager - Dan Iosif / Project coordinator - Cristina Tudor / Scenography Assistant - Andrei Șova / Videographers - Adi Bulboacă, Sorin Florea / Video editor - Florina Titz / Making-of - Marius Beșu / Producers - Florin Niculae, Ana Țecu, Ana Ciobanu, Anita Nițulescu / Production manager - Roxana Cozma / Communication manager - Sînziana Boaru Gîrjob / PR & Media relations - Bianca Cenușe


Alexandru Seremet
BMW Group Romania
Corporate Communication Manager
Telephone: +40-726-266-224


About BMW Group Cultural Engagement
For almost 50 years now, the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in over 100 cultural cooperations worldwide. The company places the main focus of its long-term commitment on contemporary and modern art, classical music and jazz as well as architecture and design. In 1972, three large-scale paintings were created by the artist Gerhard Richter specifically for the foyer of the BMW Group’s Munich headquarters. Since then, artists such as Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Daniel Barenboim, Jonas Kaufmann and architect Zaha Hadid have co-operated with BMW. In 2016 and 2017, female artist Cao Fei from China and American John Baldessari created the next two vehicles for the BMW Art Car Collection. For years, the BMW Group and its partners have been initiating and establishing their own formats such as BMW Tate Live, BMW Welt Jazz Award, BMW Open Work, the BMW Art Journey and the "Opera for All" concerts in Berlin, Munich, Moscow and London. The company also partners with leading museums, art fairs and orchestras as well as jazz festivals and opera houses around the world. With BMW OPERA NEXT, the new partnership with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the opportunities presented by digitalisation are used to open up new ways of accessing the world of opera for young audiences. As part of its art programme “Muse”, Rolls-Royce partners for the initiative “The Dream Commission” with two internationally esteemed art institutions. Together with Fondation Beyeler and Serpentine Galleries, emerging and established artists are invited to submit a moving-image work that delivers an immersive sensory experience. The artists are nominated and chosen by renowned personalities of the art world like Daniel, Birnbaum, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Cao Fei, and Theodora Vischer. The BMW Group takes absolute creative freedom in all its cultural activities for granted – as this initiative is as essential for producing groundbreaking artistic work as it is for major innovations in a successful business.

Further information: www.bmwgroup.com/culture and www.bmwgroup.com/culture/overview

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Munich. BMW M as contemporary art – in the wake of the further development of BMW Individual, the BMW M GmbH will be presenting its latest collaboration: a multi-tiered project with eminent international contemporary artist FUTURA 2000; the partnership will debut at Frieze Los Angeles 2020. In this collaboration, FUTURA 2000, who is known for his mastery of color, concentric forms, and kinetic composition, will create three exclusive and unique versions of the BMW M2 Competition (combined fuel consumption: 10.0 l/100 km; combine CO2 emissions: 227 g/km) in his unmistakable style, whilst also designing a limited-edition of the BMW M2 Competition which is scheduled for public purchase in June 2020. One of the hand-painted BMW M2 by FUTURA 2000 vehicles will celebrate its world premiere at the second Frieze Los Angeles—being held at the Paramount Pictures Studios in Hollywood from 13 to 16 February.

“The BMW M2 Competition is dynamic, extroverted and, to a certain degree, pleasantly provocative. I consider it a great honour to be able to add a special touch to this vehicle,” says FUTURA 2000. Markus Flasch, CEO BMW M GmbH, adds:  "We are very proud of having been able to gain such an internationally well-known artist as FUTURA 2000 for the collaboration on the three unique one-offs of the  BMW M2 Competition. I’m already looking forward very much to seeing how he transforms our M2 into the edition intended for our customers. With his unique, constructive and rebellious style, Futura is perfectly suited to a young and wild automobile such as the BMW M2 Competition."

The artist will work extensively on the three unique versions of the BMW M2 by FUTURA 2000 both on the exterior and in the interior. The limited-production models will also bear his unique signature. The trim strips on the instrument panel and the centre console of each vehicle boast a special, individually created FUTURA 2000 design. The bi-coloured, Dakota leather M sports seats in black and ivory white feature polar blue contrast stitching. In addition, the interior package includes an M Alcantara leather-clad sports steering wheel with a grey 12 o’clock marking and special door sill trims bearing the consecutive limited-edition number and a Futura signature. From the outside, the BMW M2 Edition designed by FUTURA 2000* is recognisable by the painted surfaces on the front and rear aprons and the side sills. Moreover, each car is fitted with 19-inch jet black light alloy wheels.

Frieze Los Angeles joined Frieze New York, Frieze London and Frieze Masters at the forefront of the international art fair calendar last year, celebrating Los Angeles’ position as a global arts center and destination. The annual contemporary art fair features around 70 L.A.-based and international galleries, alongside a site-specific program of talks, music and commissioned artist projects organized in collaboration with leading curators. Frieze Los Angeles is led by Victoria Siddall, Director, Frieze Fairs, and Bettina Korek, Executive Director, Frieze Los Angeles.

In celebration of their long-term partnership, BMW partners with Frieze to present Frieze Music, co-curated by writer and curator Kevin McGarry and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Serpentine Galleries London, in association with NeueHouse. The event will feature Moses Sumney, Caroline Polachek, Zsela as well as DJ Uwuqi and takes place on Friday, 14 February, at 9 p.m. at NeueHouse Hollywood.

Soho House and BMW i will host an art talk on Wednesday, 12 February, where contemporary artist FUTURA 2000 and rapper Lupe Fiasco will talk about “Sights and Sounds”, moderated by writer Arty Nelson. As always, the joint event focusses on the fertile ground between art, innovation and design and is followed by a cocktail reception. As part of an ongoing collaboration, Soho House and BMW i have co‑created an international program of events and experiences focusing on art, innovation and design throughout Soho House locations across the world.

FUTURA 2000, born Leonard Hilton McGurr, established himself as a pioneer when graffiti met the formal gallery ecosystem in the 1980s. He quickly became known for his radical approach in the street, introducing abstraction to an entirely letter based discipline, and found himself as part of a wider art movement that included the likes of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Dondi White, and Rammellzee. Aside from his decades long career as a contemporary artist, he has achieved great success as a commercial artist, being commissioned by the likes of several well-known brands.

With the one-offs and the BMW M2 Edition designed by FUTURA 2000*, the BMW M GmbH is setting trends both in the high-performance vehicle sector and the art scene alike. The BMW M2 Competition is a truly successful model for the BMW M GmbH. The high-performance athlete positioned in the premium compact class is powered by a dual-charged, straight six-cylinder with M TwinPower Turbo Technology and 302 kW (410 hp), and was again the best-selling BMW M automobile and most popular model in its segment in 2019. In the readers’ voting for the “sportiest cars of 2019” held by the magazine “sport auto”, the BMW M2 Competition asserted itself in the category “Coupes up to 75,000 Euros” and clinched the “sport auto” Award 2019 with 32.1 percent of the votes and clearly ahead of the competition. 

* specific parts are individually hand painted, the final look and layout can be slightly different than shown in the pictures.

Munich. In the wake of the further development of BMW Individual, BMW M GmbH will be presenting its latest collaboration, a multi-tiered project with eminent international contemporary artist FUTURA 2000. The partnership will debut at Frieze Los Angeles 2020. In this collaboration, FUTURA 2000, who is known for his mastery of colour, concentric forms, and kinetic composition, will create three exclusive and unique versions of the BMW M2 Competition (combined fuel consumption: 10.0 l/100 km; combined CO2 emissions: 227 g/km) in his unmistakable style, whilst also designing a limited-edition series of the BMW M2 Competition which is scheduled for public purchase in June 2020. One of the hand-painted BMW M2 by Futura vehicles will celebrate its world premiere at the second Frieze Los Angeles – being held at the Paramount Pictures Studios in Hollywood from 13 to 16 February.

FUTURA 2000, born Leonard Hilton McGurr, established himself as a pioneer when graffiti met the formal gallery ecosystem in the 1980s. He quickly became known for his radical approach on the street, introducing abstraction to an entirely letter based discipline, and found himself part of a wider art movement that included the likes of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Dondi White. Aside from his decades-long career as a contemporary artist, he has achieved great success as a commercial artist, collaborating with several well-known brands.

With the unique BMW M2 by Futura and the BMW M2 Edition Futura, BMW M GmbH is setting trends both in the high-performance vehicle sector and the art scene.

About Futura 2000

FUTURA 2000, born Leonard Hilton McGurr, became a pioneer when graffiti met the formal gallery ecosystem in the 1980s. Known for his radical approach in the street, he introduced abstraction to an entirely letter-based discipline. His work caught attention in the 1980s, and he found himself as part of a wider art movement that included the likes of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Dondi White. Entirely self-taught in what he calls “the subway school”, FUTURA 2000 has been compared to Kandinsky for his mastery of colour, concentric forms, and kinetic composition—and friends Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, and Rammellzee for his progressiveness and of-the moment dynamism.

Radical then, his methodology can now be viewed over a span of decades as something consummately pure. When compared to many street artists who have come along since its seminal moment in the 1980s New York, FUTURA 2000’s work still stands apart for its subtlety, use of white space, and elemental quality. Insight and proficiency have kept him relevant for 40+ years with no signs of slowing down. He has also achieved great success as a commercial artist, having collaborated with several well-known brands.

About BMW Group Cultural Engagement

For almost 50 years now, the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in over 100 cultural cooperations worldwide. The company places the main focus of its long-term commitment on contemporary and modern art, classical music and jazz as well as architecture and design. In 1972, three large-scale paintings were created by the artist Gerhard Richter specifically for the foyer of the BMW Group’s Munich headquarters. Since then, artists such as Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Daniel Barenboim, Jonas Kaufmann and architect Zaha Hadid have co-operated with BMW. In 2016 and 2017, female artist Cao Fei from China and American John Baldessari created the next two vehicles for the BMW Art Car Collection. Besides co-initiatives, such as BMW Tate Live, the BMW Art Journey and the “Opera for All” concerts in Berlin, Munich, Moscow and London, the company also partners with leading museums and art fairs as well as orchestras and opera houses around the world. As part of its art programme “Muse”, Rolls-Royce partners for the initiative “The Dream Commission” with two internationally esteemed art institutions. Together with Fondation Beyeler and Serpentine Galleries, emerging and established artists are invited to submit a moving-image work that delivers an immersive sensory experience. The artists are nominated and chosen by renowned personalities of the art world like Daniel, Birnbaum, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Cao Fei, and Theodora Vischer. BMW Group takes absolute creative freedom in all its cultural activities for granted – as this initiative is as essential for producing groundbreaking artistic work as it is for major innovations in a successful business.

Further information: www.bmwgroup.com/culture and www.bmwgroup.com/culture/overview

The BMW Group

With its four brands BMW, MINI, Rolls-Royce and BMW Motorrad, the BMW Group is the world’s leading premium manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles and also provides premium financial and mobility services. The BMW Group production network comprises 31 production and assembly facilities in 15 countries; the company has a global sales network in more than 140 countries.

In 2019, the BMW Group sold over 2,520,000 passenger vehicles and more than 175,000 motorcycles worldwide. The profit before tax in the financial year 2018 was € 9.815 billion on revenues amounting to € 97.480 billion. As of 31 December 2018, the BMW Group had a workforce of 134,682 employees.

The success of the BMW Group has always been based on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company has therefore established ecological and social sustainability throughout the value chain, comprehensive product responsibility and a clear commitment to conserving resources as an integral part of its strategy.

www.bmwgroup.com

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Munich/Miami Beach They are almost everywhere and yet not always easy to find. Large-format graffiti, also known as murals in their most artistic form, are an integral part of the street scene in Miami. The city in the south of the Sunshine State is regarded as the centre of Street Art. On the occasion of Art Basel Miami Beach (5 - 8 December 2019), BMW is accompanying artists Alexandre Arrechea and Spencer "MAR" Guilburt on a discovery tour to the most remarkable examples of modern mural painting in the metropolis on the Atlantic. The visual artist Arrechea and the street art specialist Guilburt will complete their Mural Tour in a vehicle that is also suitable for adding a visual touch to the streets of any urban conurbation. The elegant BMW M850i xDrive Convertible (fuel consumption combined: 10.2 - 10.0 l/100 km; CO2 emissions combined: 231 - 228 g/km) is a prime example of advanced automotive engineering and offers a perfect unobstructed view of the bright blue sky, the spectacular architecture of Miami and the many facades of the city embellished by street artists.

As a long-standing global partner of the renowned Art Basel art fair, BMW is once again involved in Miami, for example with a VIP shuttle service and as part of the joint initiative BMW Art Journey and the BMW 8 Series Mural Tour. Alexandre Arrechea and Spencer "MAR" Guilburt cruise the city in the BMW M850i xDrive Convertible in search of the most fascinating murals. In their conversations they exchange artistic similarities and mutual inspiration for their work. In addition to the facades on which Guilburt has immortalised himself with his murals, one of the stops on their tour will be an excursion to an exhibition of Arrecha's works shown at Art Basel Miami Beach by the Nara Roesler gallery. Street art fans can follow their discovery tour on the artists’ social media channels (@this_means, @alexandrearrechea) and the BMW Group cultural engagement (@bmwgroupculture).

On the Mural Tour through Miami, the BMW M850i xDrive Convertible also shows off its impressive qualities. With its dynamic and elegant appearance, the open four-seater offers the most exclusive way to enjoy driving pleasure in a BMW 8 Series luxury sports car. 15 seconds are all it takes to open or close the classic textile soft top electrically. The luxurious ambience in the interior, the impressive sportiness of the drive and the advanced operating and networking technology form a unique combination, the charm of which is also immediately apparent to the two artists on their journey through the streets of Miami.

However, the performance characteristics of the open four-seater and its racing-inspired V8 engine with BMW TwinPower Turbo Technology and 390 kW/530 hp, are only hinted at, for example by the sonorous sound of the standard sports exhaust system and a few short intermediate spurts. The extroverted Sonic Speed Blue metallic paintwork highlights the generous surface design and precise lines of the open-air sports car without any restrictions. Thus the BMW M850i xDrive Convertible turns into an attraction when relaxedly cruising from the Wynwood Art District via South Beach to the Midtown Design District, which, like Miami’s murals, attracts attention on almost every street corner.

Munich. “I love this car. It’s more successful than the artwork,” was the opinion of Andy Warhol after his sweeping brush strokes had transformed the BMW M1. It took him less than half an hour to create the fourth exhibit in the BMW Art Car Collection. 40 years later, enthusiasm for the mid-engined sports car remains unabated. Already world-famous at that time, the US icon of Pop Art shared the same passion with many automobile fans of that bygone era. And the fascination of the unique special created by Warhol has indeed increased. Many fans regard his Art Car as the highlight of the entire collection. It’s therefore hardly surprising that Munich-based automobile photographer Stephan Bauer spontaneously opted for the BMW M1 finished in the Warhol design when he was selecting his dream subject on four wheels. Last year, Bauer (29) emerged as the victor in the Social Media Contest “Shootout 2018” organised by BMW Group Classic and he was given the opportunity for an exclusive photo shoot with BMW Art Car Number Four. A series of photos was created to mark the 40th birthday of the BMW M1 designed by Andy Warhol. They provide a completely new perspective on one of the most legendary vehicles from the history of BMW.

Five photographic artists entered their best shots from the world of BMW classic cars in the “Shootout 2018” competition held on the Instagram social media platform. BMW Group Classic joined forces with BMW Culture, BMW Motorsport, BMW M GmbH and BMW subsidiary companies in several international markets for the joint project. It focused the attention of young target groups on the numerous motor-sport successes and record chases with vehicles and engines from BMW over the past 100 years. The prize for the winner was an enthralling photo shoot with a vehicle of their choice from the comprehensive collection of BMW Group Classic. The choice of the winner fell on the BMW M1 in the powerful 470 hp racing version produced in conformity with Group 4 regulations. 40 years ago, this automobile both celebrated its sporting debut in the Procar Series and entered the annals of Pop Art history.

Against the backdrop of an old factory building in Cologne, Stephan Butler choreographed a spectacular contrast between the brightly coloured Art Car and the dour grey of the abandoned industrial structure. At a subsequent outdoor session, laser search lights shrouded the BMW M1 in a positively mystical atmosphere. In both settings, the Art Car kept emerging from a completely new perspective – and always to perfection. The results of the photo shoot are posted on the Facebook page of BMW Group Classic and on the Instagram Account of BMW Group Classic.

Andy Warhol’s Art Car proved to be a dream subject for the recent photo shoot in Cologne. The artist himself made things much more difficult for the photographers. 40 years ago, the cameras had hardly been set up when Warhol had already finished painting the bodywork in all the colours of the rainbow. As the artist explained later, his speed was a reflection of the statement made by his work of art: “I attempted to show speed as a visual image. When an automobile is really travelling fast, all the lines and colours are transformed into a blur.”

Very soon after the last brush stroke had been applied, the BMW M1 styled by Warhol demonstrated just how fast an artwork can be. In June 1979, the BMW M1 emblazoned with start number 76 competed in the 24 Hour Race of Le Mans. German driver Manfred Winkelhock, and Frenchmen Hervé Poulain and Marcel Mignot drove the Art Car to second place in its class and achieved a ranking of six in the overall standings.

Saint-Tropez/Munich. On the occasion of Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation’s (LDF) Fourth Annual Saint-Tropez Gala, BMW France had the pleasure to donate a BMW i3, designed by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari of TOILETPAPER, for the yearly fundraising auction. After some intense bidding, the unique artwork and fully functioning electric vehicle went to a Swiss collector for the amount of €100,000.

The gala was hosted by LDF Founder and Chairman Leonardo DiCaprio, foundation CEO Terry Tamminen and the Global Fundraising Chairman Milutin Gatsby, honoring the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. Event Chairs included Prince Albert II of Monaco, Cate Blanchett, Marion Cotillard, Philippe Cousteau, Penélope Cruz, Tom Hanks, Kate Hudson, Doutzen Kroes, Jared Leto, Tobey Maguire, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Uma Thurman and Kate Winslet. Among the guests in attendance were Adrien Brody, Sean Penn, Taylor Hill, Iman Hamman and Gerard Butler. For the international guests, American artist Lenny Kravitz performed on site. Additionally, there was a surprise performance by Madonna.

Vincent Salimon, CEO BMW Group France is delighted that “our commitments to sustainable development and support for contemporary creation come together to raise funds for the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. The BMW i3 "Spaghetti Car" was created by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari on the initiative of BMW France and the Rencontres d'Arles, BMW partnered for 8 years. The donation of this unique work for the Foundation's annual charity gala in Saint-Tropez reflects once again the company's culture: daring, innovating, creating in complete freedom, in a responsible and sustainable spirit.”

Auctioneer Simon de Pury, together with curator Lisa Schiff of SFA Advisory oversaw the sale of dozens of original works by internationally renowned artists such as Jeff Koons, Tracey Emin, Urs Fischer, Paul McCarthy, Adrian Ghenie, Rudolf Stingel and current BMW Art Journey recipient Max Hooper Schneider.

With $30 million raised so far, the auction continues online to benefit LDF programs. Please visit: http://www.2017ldfauction.org/en.

The BMW i3 “Spaghetti Car” On the occasion of the Rencontres d’Arles Festival of Photography in 2016, Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan (*1960) created a BMW i3 (60 Ah) “rolling sculpture” together with the photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari (*1971). In 2009 Cattelan and Ferrari co-created TOILETPAPER, a bi-annual picture-based publication. For the exterior of the BMW i3, TOILETPAPER employed their signature style spaghetti close-up imagery. Cattelan remarked upon his work: “This is by far the best Spaghetti Car I have tasted! All those years of perfecting definitely paid off! Totally awesome!”

Maurizio Cattelan is considered one of the most significant artists of his time, with major exhibitions at international museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Georges Pompidou as well as the Guggenheim Museum in New York. His sculpture “Him” (2001) sold at auction at Christie’s in 2016 in excess of $17m. Within the same year, he installed “America”, a solid 18-karat gold toilet in the Guggenheim Museum’s restroom, free of use for the public. Cattelan is a four-time participant of the Venice Biennial.

From Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein to Robert Rauschenberg and Jeff Koons, BMW has been collaborating with artists creating Art Cars for almost half a century. The BMW i3 series was launched in 2014 as part of the BMW i brand, standing for visionary vehicle concepts and technologies, connected mobility services as well as a new understanding of premium defined by sustainability. The “Spaghetti Car” by TOILETPAPER is a fully functioning electric vehicle and came with a certificate of authenticity signed by TOILETPAPER (Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari) as co-creators of this unique work of art.

For event images please refer to: www.picdrop.de/gettyentertainment

(© Getty Images for Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation)

For further questions please contact:

Dr Thomas Girst

BMW Group Corporate and Intergovernmental Affairs

Head of Cultural Engagement

Telephone: +49-89-382-20067 E-Mail: Thomas.Girst@bmwgroup.com

https://newsroom.bmwgroup.com/global/en

E-Mail: presse@bmw.de

About BMW Group’s Cultural Commitment For almost 50 years now, the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in over 100 cultural cooperations worldwide. The company places the main focus of its long-term commitment on contemporary and modern art, classical music and jazz as well as architecture and design. In 1972, three large-scale paintings were created by the artist Gerhard Richter specifically for the foyer of the BMW Group's Munich headquarters. Since then, artists such as Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Daniel Barenboim, Jonas Kaufmann and architect Zaha Hadid have co-operated with BMW. In 2016 and 2017, female artist Cao Fei from China and American John Baldessari created the next two vehicles for the BMW Art Car Collection. Besides co-initiatives, such as BMW Tate Live, the BMW Art Journey and the “Opera for All” concerts in Berlin, Munich and London, the company also partners with leading museums and art fairs as well as orchestras and opera houses around the world. The BMW Group takes absolute creative freedom in all its cultural activities – as this initiative is as essential for producing groundbreaking artistic work as it is for major innovations in a successful business.

Further information: www.bmwgroup.com/culture and www.bmwgroup.com/culture/overview 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BMW-Group-Culture-925330854231870/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bmwgroupculture/

@BMWGroupCulture

#BMWGroupCulture

The BMW Group

With its four brands BMW, MINI, Rolls-Royce and BMW Motorrad, the BMW Group is the world’s leading premium manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles and also provides premium financial and mobility services. As a global company, the BMW Group operates 31 production and assembly facilities in 14 countries and has a global sales network in more than 140 countries.

In 2016, the BMW Group sold approximately 2.367 million cars and 145,000 motorcycles worldwide. The profit before tax was approximately € 9.67 billion on revenues amounting to € 94.16 billion. As of 31 December 2016, the BMW Group had a workforce of 124,729 employees.

The success of the BMW Group has always been based on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company has therefore established ecological and social sustainability throughout the value chain, comprehensive product responsibility and a clear commitment to conserving resources as an integral part of its strategy.

www.bmwgroup.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BMWGroup

Twitter: http://twitter.com/BMWGroup

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/BMWGroupview

Google+: http://googleplus.bmwgroup.com

Munich/New York. Following commissions by Jenny Holzer (1999), Olafur Elíasson (2007) and Jeff Koons (2010), the BMW Art Car series will now be continued. On the occasion of the series’ 40th anniversary, a jury of distinguished museum directors and curators chose two internationally renowned artists to design one car each. Chinese artist Cao Fei (*1978) and American artist John Baldessari (*1931) will be the youngest and the oldest artist represented in the collection respectively. On November 19 and in the presence of the artists, Ian Robertson, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, announced the collaboration at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in front of 150 select guests. Both artists will create a BMW M6 GT3 in the coming year. The newly-designed vehicles will then be presented in museums in 2017, while also having to prove themselves on the racetrack. “On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the BMW Art Car Collection, it is time to look ahead. The collection is the embodiment of the cultural commitment of the BMW Group – its vehicles stand for the combination of cutting-edge technology and inspiring art. We are very proud to expand the series with two works by such renowned artists,” said Ian Robertson during the presentation. 

Artists’ comments 

“I’m thrilled to be able to join the magnificent list of BMW Art Car artists. Acceleration, a concept that reminds me of my desire for speed as a runner during the Young Pioneers days, is deeply connected to the entangled contemporary relationships between velocity, energy, and the country.”

Cao Fei

"I was honored to have many of my respected peers recommend me as a BMW Art Car artist. Creating art that exists outside of a museum is important to me, and should be a goal for all artists. This will definitely be my fastest artwork yet.”

John Baldessari

With their commitment Cao Fei and John Baldessari will be joining the ranks of renowned artists such as Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and David Hockney.

The jury

The experts who conducted the judging were Richard Armstrong, Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), Chris Dercon, Director, Tate Modern (London), Juan Gaitán, Director, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City), Gabriele Horn, Director, KW Institute of Contemporary Art (Berlin), Udo Kittelmann, Director, Nationalgalerie Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Dr. Matthias Mühling, Director, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus (Munich), Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director, Serpentine Gallery (London), Shwetal A. Patel, Kochi-Muziris Biennale (India), Beatrix Ruf, Director, Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Bisi Silva, Director, The Centre for Contemporary Art (Lagos), Philip Tinari, Director, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (Bejing) and Adam D. Weinberg, Director, Whitney Museum of American Art (New York).

Regarding the nominations, the jury has said of their choice:

“We are convinced that both nominated artists can add – in their distinctive approaches – unique and new facets to the existing collection of the BMW Art Cars. Cao Fei is one of the most promising and boldest Chinese artists of her generation. For her work on the 18th BMW Art Car, we are in particular looking forward as to how she may turn the car into an imaginative part of her parallel universe. John Baldessari is a great pioneer and godfather of an entire art scene in LA and beyond. As a “serial” inventor, he keeps surprising us and we are excited to see the unexpected in what he will come up with for the 19th BMW Art Car.”

The BMW M6 GT3

In 2016, the BMW M6 GT3 will spearhead the range of cars available to the BMW customer racing programme. It is powered by a 4.4-litre V8 engine with M TwinPower Turbo technology, which has been modified slightly for use in motor racing. The powertrain has dry sump lubrication and generates up to 585 hp – with the whole car weighing less than 1,300 kilograms. Further technical characteristics are the transaxle drive concept, six-speed sequential racing transmission, and high-performance motorsport electronics. The aerodynamic properties of the chassis have been optimised in the BMW wind tunnel. The engineers worked meticulously to fine-tune the BMW M6 Coupé, which formed the basis for the new car and was already perfectly suited to outings on the racetrack.

Jens Marquardt, BMW Motorsport Director: "It is fantastic that the tradition of the BMW Art Car series will be continued with the BMW M6 GT3. Motorsport and the BMW Art Cars have always been very closely linked. Our racing cars in the special designs of well-known artists have cult status among the general public. I am convinced that the same will be true of the works by Cao Fei and John Baldessari. Naturally we want to fight for wins with the BMW M6 GT3 Art Cars. This combination of art and performance on the race track really is unique."

The BMW Art Car Collection

Since 1975 artists from the world over have been creating Art Cars on the basis of contemporary BMW automobiles. The collection was inaugurated when French race car driver and art aficionado Hervé Poulain in collaboration with the then BMW Motorsport Director Jochen Neerpasch asked his artist friend Alexander Calder to design a 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 favourite with the spectators: the BMW Art Car Collection was born. In 2010, the most recent addition to the series, a car designed by Jeff Koons, was introduced at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. BMW Art Cars are not only on display in their home town at BMW’s museum in Munich, they also travel internationally to exhibitions and museums in Asia, Europe and North America. 2014 saw the first comprehensive publication on the collection. For further information, please go to http://bit.ly/1JSDssV

Find the BMW Art Car Collection on our social media sites following:

#BMWArtCar

http://bmwartcars.tumblr.com/

For further questions please contact:

Dr. Thomas Girst

BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs

Head of Cultural Engagement

Telephone: +49-89-382-24753

Leonie Laskowski

BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs

Cultural Engagement

Telephone: +49-89-382-45382

Internet:  https://newsroom.bmwgroup.com/global/en

Mail: presse@bmw.de

BMW’s Cultural Commitment For more than 40 years now, the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in over 100 cultural cooperations worldwide. The company places the main focus of its long-term commitment on modern and contemporary art, jazz and classical music as well as architecture and design. In 1972, three large-scale paintings were created by the artist Gerhard Richter specifically for the foyer of the BMW Group's Munich headquarters. Since then, artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Olafur Eliasson, Jeff Koons, Zubin Metha, Daniel Barenboim and Anna Netrebko have co-operated with BMW. The company has also commissioned famous architects such as Karl Schwanzer, Zaha Hadid and Coop Himmelb(l)au to design important corporate buildings and plants. In 2011, the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a global initiative of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, the Guggenheim Museum and the BMW Group celebrated its world premiere in New York. The BMW Group takes absolute creative freedom in all the cultural activities it is involved in for granted – as this is just as essential for groundbreaking artistic work as it is for major innovations in a successful business. 

Further information: www.bmwgroup.com/culture and www.bmwgroup.com/culture/overview 

The BMW Group

With its three brands BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce, the BMW Group is the world’s leading premium manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles and also provides premium financial and mobility services. As a global company, the BMW Group operates 30 production and assembly facilities in 14 countries and has a global sales network in more than 140 countries. 

In 2014, the BMW Group sold approximately 2.118 million cars and 123,000 motorcycles worldwide. The profit before tax for the financial year 2014 was approximately € 8.71 billion on revenues amounting to € 80.40 billion. As of 31 December 2014, the BMW Group had a workforce of 116,324 employees. 

The success of the BMW Group has always been based on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company has therefore established ecological and social sustainability throughout the value chain, comprehensive product responsibility and a clear commitment to conserving resources as an integral part of its strategy. 

www.bmwgroup.com

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Munich. On Sunday, after four days and over 5,000 visitors, the KINO DER KUNST in Munich, a festival exclusively for the films of visual artists, culminated with the presentation of the two main awards.The first prize went to Almagul Menlibayeva, an artist from Kazakhstan and the other one to Till Nowak from Germany. Both awards were for €10,000 each and were donated by the Goetz Collection and BMW. Omer Fast, an Israeli artist now living in Berlin received the Audience Award worth €5,000. Egyptian artist Wael Shawky won the Award for the Filmic OEuvre. He was regarded as one of the most important newcomers at last year's dOCUMENTA (13).

The international jury with actress Amira Casar, museum director Defne Ayas and the artists Cindy Sherman and Isaac Julien praised Transoxiana Dreams by Almagul Menlibayeva as a “personal and intimate vision of everyday life in an environmentally damaged landscape" as well as a “nomadic shamanesque revival through punk and surreal staged tableaux vivants.”

For the second main award, donated by BMW, which is presented to artists under 35, the jury wrote: "In The Centrifuge Brain Project by Till Nowak, the visions of mad scientist’s vision meets a child’s vision of an amusement park ride in a uniquely convincing and smooth use of computer generatedimages. The work is a both witty and uncanny scientific mockumentary of television reportages.” 

Special mention was given by the jury of the International Competition to Andro Wekua for his short film Never Sleep with a Strawberry in Your Mouth. Katarina Stanković from Serbia received the KINO DER KUNST Project Award for her Circle with Four Corners.

Festival director Heinz Peter Schwerfel was delighted at the interest that the festival aroused in Munich. Besides the around 90 films from 31 countries which appeared on the large screen, there were also numerous multichannel installations on view at various museums and galleries.

Overview of the Awards and Prizewinners

Main Award KINO DER KUNST, donated by Ingvild Goetz (Goetz Collection), €10,000; Prizewinner: "Transoxiana Dreams“ (KAZ 2011, 23’) by Almagul Menlibayeva

Main Award KINO DER KUNST, donated by BMW, €10,000 Euro; Prizewinner: “The Centrifuge Brain Project” (DEU 2011, 6’35’’) by Till Nowak

Award for the Filmic OEuvre, donated by Louis Vuitton, €10,000; Prizewinner: Wael Shawky (EGY)
Audience Award, donated by the Biehler von Dorrer Stiftung, €5,000; Prizewinner: “5000 Feet is the Best” (USA 2011, 31’) by Omer Fast

KINO DER KUNST Project Award, donated by ARRI Film & TV Services GmbH,In kind with a value of €10,000; Prizewinner: “Circle with Four Corners” (SRB, 30’) by Katarina Stanković

About BMW’s Cultural Commitment

For more than 40 years now, the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in over 100 cultural cooperations worldwide. The company places the main focus of its long-term commitment on modern and contemporary art, jazz and classical music as well as architecture and design. In 1972, three large-scale paintings were created by the artist Gerhard Richter specifically for the foyer of the BMW Group's Munich headquarters. Since then, artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Olafur Eliasson, Jeff Koons, Zubin Metha, Daniel Barenboim and Anna Netrebko have co-operated with BMW. The company has also commissioned famous architects such as Karl Schwanzer, Zaha Hadid and Coop Himmelb(l)au to design important corporate buildings and plants. In 2011, the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a global initiative of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, the Guggenheim Museum and the BMW Group celebrated its world premiere in New York. The BMW Group takes absolute creative freedom in all the cultural activities it is involved in for granted – as this is just as essential for groundbreaking artistic work as it is for major innovations in a successful business.

Further information: www.bmwgroup.com/culture and www.bmwgroup.com/culture/overview

The BMW Group
The BMW Group is the leading premium manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles in the world with its BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce brands. As a global company, the BMW Group operates 28 production and assembly facilities in 13 countries and has a global sales network in more than 140 countries. 

In 2012, the BMW Group sold about 1.85 million cars and more than 117,000 motorcycles worldwide. The profit before tax for the financial year 2012 was euro 7.82 billion on revenues amounting to euro 76.85 billion. At 31 December 2012, the BMW Group had a workforce of 105,876 employees.

The success of the BMW Group has always been built on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company has therefore established ecological and social sustainability throughout the value chain, comprehensive product responsibility and a clear commitment to conserving resources as an integral part of its strategy. As a result of its efforts, the BMW Group has been ranked industry leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes for the last eight years.

www.bmwgroup.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BMWGroup

Twitter: http://twitter.com/BMWGroup

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/BMWGroupview

Google+: http://googleplus.bmwgroup.com

For questions please contact:

Dr. Thomas Girst

BMW Group Corporate and Intergovernmental Affairs

Head of Cultural Engagement

Telephone: +49 89-382-24753, Fax: +49 89-382-10881

Antonia Ruder

BMW Group Corporate and Intergovernmental Affairs

Cultural Engagement

Telephone: +49-(0)89-382-51468, Fax: +49-(0)89-382-10881

Internet: https://newsroom.bmwgroup.com/global/en

E-mail: presse@bmw.de

Ursula Teich

KINO DER KUNST

Telephone: +49-(0)221-5743112

Internet: www.kinoderkunst.de

E-mail: teich@kinoderkunst.de

Mumbai/Munich.The BMW Guggenheim Lab is expanding its exploration of privacy and public space in cities with today’s launch of a new online interactive. The feature, called “Public/Private,” is an extension of two research projects conducted over the past seven months as part of the BMW Guggenheim Lab Mumbai. Public/Private and selected results from the earlier projects, which included a privacy study and an initiative mapping perceptions of public spaces, are now available on the Lab’s website. 

Public/Private invites users to share their expectations of privacy as experienced in a variety of spaces—ranging from home to work to recreational. Each participant’s response will produce a unique visual graph that can be compared to feedback generated by other participants. As people from around the world add their insights, a more complex picture of privacy in urban settings will emerge. Public/Private was designed and developed by the New York-based design studio Collective Assembly. 

The research projects explore the meaning and character of privacy for residents of Mumbai, one of the most densely populated cities in the world, with a metropolitan area of approximately 20 million people. 

The first project, “Your Place, My Place, or Our Public Space?: Privacy and Spaces in Mumbai,” incorporates 1,300 in-person surveys conducted prior to and during the run of the Mumbai Lab. Responses to the survey, which explored the concept of privacy and its relationship to personal and public space, were solicited from a cross-section of Mumbaikars. The project was conducted by the Lab in a collaboration between Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research (PUKAR), a Mumbai-based independent research collective, and Mumbai Lab Team member Aisha Dasgupta. 

A second, complementary project, “Mapping Privacy in Public Spaces,” resulted in participants creating 250 “memory maps”—hand-drawn visual responses to images of public spaces in Mumbai. This participatory project was initiated by the Mumbai Lab in collaboration with the Design Cell at Kamla Raheja Vidyanidji Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA). 

“Your Place, My Place, or Our Public Space,” one of the first projects of its kind to address the topic of privacy and public space in Asia, found that the definition of privacy and the need for it are constantly shifting and that, faced with dense urban conditions, Mumbaikars find novel ways of using available space to meet privacy needs. Findings reveal that:

• While the majority of respondents considered “home” as their most private space, when asked from whom they seek privacy, 26% of Mumbaikars needed respite from their neighbors and 24% from their family.
• Although community spaces are typically considered “public” settings, they offer a level of intimacy and separation from family and neighbors that many homes in Mumbai lack. These spaces include beaches and parks as well as areas that may not typically be considered public such as cinema halls, malls, restaurants, and membership clubs.
• 87% of women surveyed reported that there are community or public spaces that are inacessible to them; these women cited safety and sexual harassment as their top concerns. 

“Mapping Privacy in Public Spaces” corroborated findings from the “Your Place, My Place, or Our Public Space” study, demonstrating that:

• Most participants often found privacy in public spaces that contained an architectural element such as street furniture or playground equipment.
• Participants attained privacy in large open spaces such as seafront promenades and maidans (open spaces often used for sport or large gatherings).
• A sense of belongingness, security, ownership, seclusion, personalization of the space, accessibility, and freedom of expression were essential to fostering a sense of privacy in public space. 

“During the last two years, the BMW Guggenheim Lab’s programs have encouraged people to take an active role in shaping their cities, but just as important may be the ability of city dwellers to find a sense of privacy within their urban environment,” said David van der Leer, curator of the Mumbai Lab. “The privacy studies initiated by the Mumbai Lab sparked a reimagining of how we think about and use precious public space in cities, and now, with the launch of our new interactive feature, we can open up the conversation to many other cities around the world.” 

The BMW Guggenheim Lab Mumbai, open from December 9, 2012 to January 20, 2013, was located at the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, with an additional five satellite Labs throughout the city and its suburbs. The Lab presented 165 programs over 29 days and included design and research projects, surveys, tours, talks, workshops, and film screenings. The Lab’s programs were conceived by Mumbai Lab Team members Aisha Dasgupta, Neville Mars, Trupti Amritwar Vaitla, and Héctor Zamora, together with Guggenheim curator David van der Leer and curatorial assistant Stephanie Kwai.  Locally based program consultants Swati Abhijit, Sourav Biswas, Vikram Doctor, Naresh Fernandes, Ammar Mahimwalla, Alisha Sadikot, Surabhi Sharma, and Pooja Warier, along with Paris-based program consultant Aaron Pereira, developed the programs based on the concepts identified by the Lab Team. Mumbai was the third stop for the mobile project, following presentations in New York and Berlin. 

Futher research and findings from the Mumbai Lab continue to be collected and analyzed and will be released in the coming months. 

As part of the Lab’s ongoing global dialogue about urban life, an exhibition to be presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York this fall will consider the major themes and ideas that emerged in Mumbai, Berlin, and New York.

About the BMW Guggenheim Lab

The BMW Guggenheim Lab is a co-initiative of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the BMW Group. The BMW Guggenheim Lab is curated by Maria Nicanor of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The project’s blog, Lab | Log, features interviews with BMW Guggenheim Lab contributors and includes coverage of the Lab’s activities. The public is invited to join the BMW Guggenheim Lab’s dedicated social communities on Twitter (@BMWGuggLab and #BGLab), Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and Foursquare, and to subscribe to the Lab's e-newsletter for the latest project updates.

About BMW’s Cultural Commitment

For more than 40 years now, the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in over 100 cultural cooperations worldwide. The company places the main focus of its long-term commitment on modern and contemporary art, jazz and classical music as well as architecture and design. In 1972, three large-scale paintings were created by the artist Gerhard Richter specifically for the foyer of the BMW Group's Munich headquarters. Since then, artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Olafur Eliasson, Jeff Koons, Zubin Metha, Daniel Barenboim and Anna Netrebko have co-operated with BMW. The company has also commissioned famous architects such as Karl Schwanzer, Zaha Hadid and Coop Himmelb(l)au to design important corporate buildings and plants. In 2011, the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a global initiative of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, the Guggenheim Museum and the BMW Group celebrated its world premiere in New York. The BMW Group takes absolute creative freedom in all the cultural activities it is involved in for granted – as this is just as essential for groundbreaking artistic work as it is for major innovations in a successful business. 

Further information: www.bmwgroup.com/culture and www.bmwgroup.com/culture/overview 

The BMW Group

The BMW Group is the leading premium manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles in the world with its BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce brands. As a global company, the BMW Group operates 28 production and assembly facilities in 13 countries and has a global sales network in more than 140 countries. 

In 2012, the BMW Group sold about 1.85 million cars and more than 117,000 motorcycles worldwide. The profit before tax for the financial year 2012 was euro 7.82 billion on revenues amounting to euro 76.85 billion. At 31 December 2012, the BMW Group had a workforce of 105,876 employees. 

The success of the BMW Group has always been built on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company has therefore established ecological and social sustainability throughout the value chain, comprehensive product responsibility and a clear commitment to conserving resources as an integral part of its strategy. As a result of its efforts, the BMW Group has been ranked industry leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes for the last eight years. 

www.bmwgroup.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BMWGroup

Twitter: http://twitter.com/BMWGroup

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/BMWGroupview

Google+: http://googleplus.bmwgroup.com

For questions please contact:

Dr. Thomas Girst

BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs

Head of Cultural Engagement

Telephone: +49 89-382-24753, Fax: +49 89-382-10881

Leonie Laskowski

BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs

Cultural Engagement

Telephone: +49 89-382-45382, Fax: +49 89-382-10881

Media Website: https://newsroom.bmwgroup.com/global/en

E-mail: presse@bmw.de

Mumbai. The BMW Guggenheim Lab will make the next stop on its global journey in Mumbai from December 9, 2012 to January 20, 2013. Presented in collaboration with the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, the Mumbai Lab will offer free programming at multiple sites throughout the city. Design projects, participatory studies, tours, talks, workshops, film screenings and cultural activities will address challenges and opportunities related to public space and the choices Mumbaikars make to balance individual and community needs in this bustling metropolitan area of more than 20 million people. Mumbai is the third stop of the mobile project, following New York and Berlin.

Part urban think tank, part community center and public gathering space, the BMW Guggenheim Lab is a pioneering global initiative aimed at raising awareness of important urban challenges and inspiring an ongoing conversation in cities around the world. In addition to participating in free programs at the Lab sites, the public is invited to visit the project website and join the dedicated online social communities or subscribe to the Lab’s e-newsletter for the latest project updates.

The central site for the Mumbai Lab will be at the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, located in the heart of the Byculla district next to the city's botanical gardens and zoo. Additionally, nearly half of the public programs will be held at a network of satellite locations throughout the city, making the Lab’s programming available to a wide range of audiences and communities. Details about the satellite locations will be announced in the coming weeks.

“The BMW Guggenheim Lab Mumbai will take its programs out to to the people in a new way. As we expand and evolve the conversation about important issues of urban life, what better city to continue this thrilling process of exploration and discovery than Mumbai, the commercial and entertainment capital of India and a leading scientific center,” said Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation. “We are honored to be working with one of India’s most important and historic national treasures, the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, and we are proud to continue our journey in collaboration with BMW.” 

“Mumbai once again demonstrates the BMW Guggenheim Lab’s ability to continuously adapt and re-imagine itself during its continuing journey through the world’s metropolises,” said Frank-Peter Arndt, member of the Board of Management, BMW AG. “To be able to engage with the city’s dazzling variety and unique inventiveness, the Guggenheim’s curators and the Lab Team, together with the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, have created a highly participatory, multidisciplinary program that is specific to Mumbai but also relevant to audiences around the globe.”

“We are delighted to collaborate with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on this critically important initiative,” said Tasneem Mehta, Managing Trustee and Honorary Director, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum. “Just as we honor and preserve the rich cultural history and heritage of Mumbai at our Museum, we must also look to our future and find ways to sustain our magnificent city and address the common challenges faced by urban dwellers around the globe.”

Mumbai Lab Team and Advisory Committee

The Mumbai Lab Team, which has created the program for the Lab together with Guggenheim curator David van der Leer and curatorial assistant Stephanie Kwai, includes four emerging talents in their fields: Aisha Dasgupta, a British demographer based in Malawi; China-based Dutch architect Neville Mars; Mumbai architect and urban transport designer Trupti Amritwar Vaitla; and Héctor Zamora, a Mexican artist based in Brazil.

The Lab Team members are nominated by the BMW Guggenheim Lab Advisory Committee, an international group of experts from various disciplines. Delhi-based transportation planner and safety expert Geetam Tiwari recently was named to the Advisory Committee.

Programming Overview

The BMW Guggenheim Lab Mumbai’s multi-site program has been developed specifically for Mumbaikars. Along with national and international experts, academics, and leaders, the Lab will celebrate Mumbai’s local thinkers and innovators by including students, neighbors, grassroots activists, commentators, local organizations, and community groups.

“With more people than ever living in cities, we need a better understanding of urban life with all its opportunities and challenges,” said BMW Guggenheim Lab curator David van der Leer. “We believe that the ideas, investigations and experiments of the Lab will help us rethink how the effective use or reuse of personal and public space can positively impact our cities.”

The Mumbai Lab will present a distinctive range of offerings. Participatory programs will bring the public together with city officials and urban planners to address issues related to transportation, housing, water, and governance; city tours will explore the psychological effects of public space; and design projects are planned to include an open competition to develop solutions for a heavily congested traffic junction in Mumbai and an exploration of ways to refit obsolete infrastructure with new public space and pedestrian functions. The robust roster will include a kaleidoscope of perspectives from entertainers, artists, filmmakers, storytellers, chefs, and others, who will share their experiences of Mumbai’s unique urban landscape and celebrate its citizens’ diversity and adaptability. In addition, the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum will lead hands-on design and creative activities for families to learn about Mumbai’s historic, cultural, and contemporary urban landscape

The days and hours of operation of the Mumbai Lab as well as a full programming schedule will be announced in the coming months.

Lab Design
As in New York and Berlin, the physical structure of the BMW Guggenheim Lab Mumbai will be in character with its urban environment. For Mumbai, Tokyo architects Atelier Bow-Wow have designed a new structure uniquely suited to the city's densely populated environment, modeled after the Indian mandapa, a raised outdoor pavilion traditionally used for public celebrations and events. Constructed primarily of bamboo, a building material often used in South Asia, the Lab’s main L-shaped structure will be situated under a canopy of shade trees in the gardens of the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum. A modified version of the Lab, which will consist of one wing of the main structure, will travel to satellite sites throughout the city.

About the BMW Guggenheim Lab

The BMW Guggenheim Lab is a joint initiative of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the BMW Group. The BMW Guggenheim Lab is curated by David van der Leer and Maria Nicanor of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The graphic identity of the Lab has been developed by Seoul-based graphic designers Sulki & Min. Activities at the Lab are reported on the project’s blog,

Lab | Log, which also features interviews with BMW Guggenheim Lab contributors. The public is invited to join the BMW Guggenheim Lab’s dedicated social communities on Twitter (@BMWGuggLab and #BGLab), Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and Foursquare).

The BMW Guggenheim Lab has been recognized with a number of prestigious honors, including a Webby Awards nomination for Excellence on the Internet, an International Design Communication Award for Best Logo, and an American Institute of Architects, New York State chapter Citation for Design Excellence. The project has also been recognized by the United Nations as an exemplary project that fosters community participation and discussion about key urban topics. In addition, the Lab was featured as a resource on TED’s website, The City 2.0, recognizing it as a globally ambitious project that seeks to spark dialogue about urban life. Urbanology, a city-planning game on the Lab’s website, was honored with a MUSE Award, presented by the American Association of Museums.

Future plans for the ongoing initiative will be announced at a later date.

About the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

Founded in 1937, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of art, primarily of the modern and contemporary periods, through exhibitions, education programs, research initiatives, and publications. The global network that began in the 1970s when the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, was joined by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, has expanded to include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (opened 1997), the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin (1997-2013), and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi currently under development. Looking to the future, the Guggenheim Foundation continues to forge international collaborations that take contemporary art, architecture, and design beyond the walls of the museum. More information about the foundation can be found at guggenheim.org.

About Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum

The Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum was established in 1872 as the Victoria & Albert Museum, Bombay. In 1975 the Museum was renamed the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum in honor of the man whose vision and dedication ensured its establishment. Now an institution of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, it is Mumbai’s oldest museum and the third oldest in the country. The Museum’s collection showcases the Decorative Arts of India and also has an extraordinary collection of clay models and dioramas that document the life of the people of Mumbai and the history of the city in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After four years of intensive restoration by the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage and supported by the Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation, the Museum reopened to the public in January 2008.

About BMW’s Cultural Commitment

For more than 40 years now, the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in more than 100 cultural cooperations worldwide. The company places the main focus of its long-term commitment on modern and contemporary art, jazz and classical music as well as architecture and design. The BMW Group has also been ranked industry leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes for the last eight years. In 1972, three large-scale paintings were created by the artist Gerhard Richter specifically for the foyer of the BMW Group's Munich headquarters. Since then, artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Olafur Eliasson, Jeff Koons, Zubin Metha, Daniel Barenboim and Anna Netrebko have cooperated with BMW. The company has also commissioned famous architects such as Karl Schwanzer, Zaha Hadid and Coop Himmelb(l)au to design important corporate buildings and plants. The BMW Group takes absolute creative freedom in all the cultural activities it is involved in for granted – as this is just as essential for groundbreaking artistic work as it is for major innovations in a successful business.

Further information: bmwgroup.com/culture and bmwgroup.com/culture/overview.

The BMW Group

The BMW Group is one of the most successful manufacturers of automobiles and motorcycles in the world with its BMW, MINI, Husqvarna Motorcycles  and Rolls-Royce brands. As a global company, the BMW Group operates 29 production and assembly facilities in 14 countries and has a global sales network in more than 140 countries.

In 2011, the BMW Group sold about 1.67 million cars and more than 113,000 motorcycles worldwide. The profit before tax for the financial year 2011 was euro 7.38 billion on revenues amounting to euro 68.82 billion. At 31 December 2011, the BMW Group had a workforce of approximately 100,000 employees.

The success of the BMW Group has always been built on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company has therefore established ecological and social sustainability throughout the value chain, comprehensive product responsibility and a clear commitment to conserving resources as an integral part of its strategy. As a result of its efforts, the BMW Group has been ranked industry leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes for the last eight years.

www.bmwgroup.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BMWGroup

Twitter: http://twitter.com/BMWGroup

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/BMWGroupview

Google+: http://googleplus.bmwgroup.com

For the complete press materials, go to bmwguggenheimlab.org/presskits

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For questions please contact:

Dr. Thomas Girst

BMW Group Corporate and Intergovernmental Affairs

Head of Cultural Engagement

Telephone: +49 89-382-24753, Fax: +49 89-382-10881

Leonie Laskowski

BMW Group Corporate and Intergovernmental Affairs

Cultural Engagement

Telephone: +49 89-382-45382, Fax: +49 89-382-10881 

Internet: https://newsroom.bmwgroup.com/global/en

E-Mail: presse@bmw.de

Munich. The short list of this year’s finalists is out. Throughout the course of the 2012 edition of the BMW Welt Jazz Awards, the jury was most impressed by the ensembles Agustí Fernández’ Aurora Trio - Barcelona and Mathias Eick Quintet - Oslo. Only four years after its creation and following this year’s motto “Jazz and the City“, BMW has established the BMW Welt Jazz Award firmly as a renowned award in the field of music. Following a total of six matinees from January to March, a jury of experts nominated two outstanding ensembles after the final matinee on March 25. The two nominated finalists will compete on May 5, 2012 at 7 p.m. in the Grand Auditorium of BMW Welt as part of the final concert of this year’s cycle.

Agustí Fernández’ Aurora Trio - Barcelona

Since becoming a professional musician at the age of 13, pianist Agustí Fernández has been a part of Barcelona’s vibrant jazz scene. There, the stylist from Palma de Mallorca founded several orchestras, was director of numerous Catalan festivals, worked for stage, film and television, for puppet theatre and for the most renowned choreographers of the Spanish dance scene. He taught at the Catalan College of Music and was involved in over 50 CD productions. Since 2005, he has concentrated predominantly on the Aurora Trio along with British Bassist Barry Guy and drummer Ramón López, likewise a figurehead of Barcelona’s music scene. The three multi-award winners are working on a new, most suggestive jazz vocabulary reduced to its minimum structures.

Mathias Eick Quintet - Oslo

In addition to the excellent musical education there are several other reasons why so many outstanding jazz musicians come from Norway, a relatively small country in terms of its population. A prime example is 32-year-old Mathias Eick, who complements the proud line of Scandinavian trumpet players such as Nils Petter Molvaer or Arve Henriksen, musicians that excel with an unconventionally lyrical and weightless tone. Eick uses it untiringly for virtually all styles of jazz in the bands of varying top performers such as Jacob Young, Mike Stern or Manu Katché, in the NuJazz formation Jaga Jagist as well as with the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra. Most recently he has focused on his own quintet, which will now also be performing at BMW Welt.

The high-ranking jury of experts includes Oliver Hochkeppel (music and culture journalist at the daily newpaper “Süddeutsche Zeitung”), Andreas Kolb (editor-in-chief of the publications “JazzZeitung” and “neue musikzeitung”), Roland Spiegel (music editor, main focus on jazz, at the Bavarian radio station “BR-KLASSIK”), Heike Lies (MA in musicology, working in the field of music and musical theatre at the Department of Culture of Munich), and Christiane Böhnke-Geisse (artistic director at jazz club “Unterfahrt”).

The final concert will be hosted by Beate Sampson, jazz expert and editor at Bayerischer Rundfunk. The award trophy will be presented by Frank-Peter Arndt, member of the board of BMW AG. The winner of the first prize will receive 10,000 Euro and the ensemble receiving second prize will receive a sum of 5,000 Euro. In addition, the audience’s favourite ensemble will also be honored with the audience award, donated by Schloss Elmau. The audience award offers the winning ensemble a residence and the opportunity to give an exclusive concert at Schloss Elmau.

The final concert will be held at the Grand Auditorium at BMW Welt. Tickets can be purchased at BMW Welt or München Ticket*.

Further information as well as photographic material regarding program, artists, jury, and sponsors is available at the BMW PressClub under www.press.bmw.de and www.bmw-welt.com/JazzAward.

About BMW’s Cultural Commitment

For more than 40 years, the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in over 100 cultural cooperations worldwide. The company places the main focus of its long-term commitment on modern and contemporary art, jazz and classical music as well as architecture and design. In 1972, three large-scale paintings were created by the artist Gerhard Richter specifically for the foyer of the BMW Group's Munich headquarters. Since then, artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Olafur Eliasson, Jeff Koons, Zubin Metha, Daniel Barenboim and Anna Netrebko have co-operated with BMW. The company has also commissioned famous architects such as Karl Schwanzer, Zaha Hadid and Coop Himmelb(l)au to design important corporate buildings and plants. In 2011, the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a global initiative of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, the Guggenheim Museum and the BMW Group celebrated its world premiere in New York. The BMW Group takes absolute creative freedom in all the cultural activities it is involved in for granted – as this is just as essential for groundbreaking artistic work as it is for major innovations in a successful business.

Information regarding the BMW Group’s cultural involvement: www.bmwgroup.com/culture

For further questions please contact:

Antonia Walther

BMW Group Corporate and Intergovernmental Affairs

Spokesperson Cultural Engagement

Telephone: +49 89-382-10422, Fax: +49 89-382-10881

Dr. Thomas Girst

BMW Group Corporate and Intergovernmental Affairs

Head of Cultural Engagement

Telephone: +49 89-382-24753, Fax: +49 89-382-10881

Email: presse@bmw.de

https://newsroom.bmwgroup.com/global/en

Le Mans, 14th June 2010. BMW brought a tradition back to life when it lined up at the 78th staging of the Le Mans 24 Hours (FR) with an elaborately designed Art Car. American artist Jeff Koons’ BMW M3 GT2 Art Car really caught the eye in France.

While the no. 78 BMW M3 GT2, with drivers Jörg Müller (DE), Augusto Farfus (BR) and Uwe Alzen (DE), finished sixth in the LM GT2 class, the BMW Art Car, with Dirk Werner (DE), Dirk Müller (DE) and Andy Priaulx (GB) at the wheel, had to retire early.

Despite this, Koons drew a very positive conclusion from the endurance classic at the “Circuit de la Sarthe”, as he reveals in this interview.

Mr Koons, unfortunately the Le Mans 24 Hours didn’t go the way all BMW fans had hoped for with the BMW Art Car. Did you still enjoy the experience?

Jeff Koons: “This race has been a very invigorating experience. It’s amazing to see the commitment of all the people involved. The fans sleep in tents and stay awake for far more than 24 hours to celebrate this event. This has me really going, as I understand that it is something truly special for all the people to be here. It’s unfortunate that the BMW M3 GT2 Art Car had to retire early, but it’s part of racing.”

Do you feel for the team you got to know well over the course of the Art Car project?

Koons: “Yes, I would have loved to see the team win, but it wasn’t to be. I know how committed they are and how much precision and care they put into their work. Of course we would have loved to see the car win. I would love to give it another chance and have it compete again.”

Power and dynamics are just two of the catchwords in motor racing. Do these terms also appear in the sphere of modern arts?

Koons: “Yes, there are many parallels. Everything is a metaphor for human life. If we build machines, it’s all metaphoric for our own bodies. These race cars are like gladiators out there. They are performing with full power and full impact.”

Usually you create pieces of art that are made to last. The BMW M3 GT2 Art Car, however, went out into a fight against rivals on the track. Was this a new experience for you to see your art in danger?

Koons: “That was really interesting for me and obviously a part of it. This project has felt so special to me, and working on it reminded me of human history. A history that you can trust the most is almost a biological narrative, it’s our DNA. From the beginning of time to now. What people experience here is that life doesn’t go so much through its physical form, but through the experience that is generated within people.”

Note to the editor: You can find fascinating and copyright free pictures of the 17th BMW Art Car in Le Mans for editorial use online at: www.press.bmwgroup-sport.com

Press Contact.
Thomas Girst, Cultural Communications, +49 89 382 20067, thomas.girst@bmw.de

Ingo Lehbrink, Phone: +49 (0) 176 20340224, Email: ingo.lehbrink@bmw.de
Florian Haasper, Phone: +49 (0) 177 5637923, Email: f.haasper@sport-media-service.de 

Le Mans. On June 12 at three in the afternoon the legendary the 24 Hours of Le Mans will officially begin. A highlight will surely be the participation of the Jeff Koons’ 17th BMW Art Car which has been presented in Paris just a week before. In April 2010, BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen announced the driver line-up for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Andy Priaulx (GB), Dirk Müller (DE) and Dirk Werner (DE) will race the BMW Art Car #79. Jörg Müller (DE), Augusto Farfus (BR), Uwe Alzen (DE) will drive the BMW Le Mans car #78.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is the world’s oldest endurance race in all of sports car racing, held annually since 1923 near the town of Le Mans, Sarthe, France. Commonly known as the Grand Prix of Endurance, it is organized by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO) and runs on a circuit containing closed public roads. The race is designed not only to test a car and driver’s ability to be quick, but also to last over a 24-hour period.

The BMW M3 GT2

Derived from the BMW M3 high-performance sports car, the BMW M3 GT2 boasts a 4.0-liter V8 engine with a maximum output of 500 bhp, an upgraded chassis, racing-caliber brakes, and extensive use of lightweight materials.  Able to reach 100 km/h in 3.4 seconds, the BMW M3 GT2 is rapidly emerging as a real first year contender at this year’s event.

For the Comeback at 24 Le Mans BMW Motorsport is supported by numerous successful partners. This is why the BMW M3 GT2 will be labeled with the logos of Castrol, Crowne Plaza, Dunlop, Randstad, Sympatex, LuK, H&R, BBS and NGK for the race on the “Circuit de la Sarthe”.

The 17th BMW Art Car by Jeff Koons

At the premiere of the 17th BMW Art Car Jeff Koons unveiled and signed his car in front of 300 international VIP guests on June 1 in the Centre Pompidou, one of the world’s most prestigious cultural institutions for modern and contemporary art. It is the same place where Roy Lichtenstein back in 1977 first presented and signed his Art Car.

In the spirit of Calder, Stella, Lichtenstein, Warhol, BMW announced this year that the 17th Art Car created by Jeff Koons will race where the first rolling pieces of art by legendary artists raced – at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France on June 12-13, 2010. Koons’ canvas is a BMW M3 GT2, which was homologated to compete at this year’s running of the world’s most famous endurance race.

The Design Process

As part of his creative process, the artist collected images of race cars, related graphics, vibrant colors, speed and explosions. The resulting artwork of bright colors conceived by Koons is evocative of power, motion and bursting energy. Its silver interior along with the powerful exterior design, the Art Car will impart a dynamic appearance even when it’s standing still.

The challenge to create the BMW Art Car had to do with using a light material and a design that would not interfere with the racecar's aerodynamics and weight. Timing was also an issue, as there was only a two month window between the first design sketches and the Paris world premiere. This is why digital print on car wrapping vinyl was used covered by a double clear-coating to bring out the color. To apply hundreds of dynamic lines of Koons' design onto the car, CAD designs were translated from 3D into 2D for the printing process and then painstakingly applied to the entire car as well as onto individual spare parts. Koons design incorporates many bright contrasting colors to communicate the aesthetics of power. The concept design was transformed into hard eged lines of color. Graphics of debris were added to the rear sides and back of the car to simulate the power of the car. Furthermore, two graphic rings on the rear of the car represent supersonic acceleration.

Koons and BMW

The germination of Koons’ collaboration with BMW began in 2003, when he expressed his desire to create a BMW Art Car. His relationship with BMW started more than two decades ago when he drove a BMW while residing in Munich, home to the BMW Group headquarters. Koons is known for his heartfelt appreciation of cars. Earlier this year he was even recognized by music icon Bono of U2 as one of the ideal artists to design a car that would make the world fall in love with automobiles again.

Koons’ creative process for the BMW Art Car mirrors techniques, some borrowed from transportation design and development, which he regularly employs for his artistic production. For example, in the creation of Koons’ monumental sculptures, his studio uses 3-D CAD models to evaluate the surfaces, assembles them via methods found in bike chop shops, and paints them in a manner based on sophisticated automotive painting techniques.

BMW Art Cars

Since 1975, artists from throughout the world have turned BMW automobiles into art signifying a particular period through the Art Car program. In 2007, the latest installment was revealed with Olafur Eliasson’s “Your mobile expectations: BMW H2R project.” Many of the cars by the likes of Warhol, Lichtenstein, Stella, Rauschenberg, Hockney and Holzer have been exhibited in renowned museums throughout the world including the Louvre, the Guggenheim Museums, and the Shanghai Art Museum. They have been displayed at the BMW Museum in Munich, between 2006 and 2010 and many went on a world tour throughout Asia, Russia, Africa, India, the United States and Mexico. The Koons car number, “79,” pays tribute to the 1979 Andy Warhol car. The Warhol car was assigned the number “76,” an homage to the 1976 Frank Stella car, both of which raced at Le Mans.

The home of all BMW Art Cars is the BMW Museum in Munich. Starting in September, Koons’ 17th BMW Art Car will be presented there together with some of its predecessors.

With over 100 major projects worldwide, BMW Group cultural programs have been an integral part of the company’s contributions to society for almost 40 years.  Besides contemporary art, architecture and design, classical music and jazz are key components of this engagement.

The BMW Group

The BMW Group is one of the most successful manufacturers of automobiles and motorcycles in the world with its BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce brands. As a global company, the BMW Group operates 24 production facilities in 13 countries and has a global sales network in more than 140 countries.

The BMW Group achieved a global sales volume of approximately 1.29 million automobiles and over 87,000 motorcycles for the 2009 financial year. The pre-tax profit for 2009 was euro 413 million, revenues totalled euro 50.68 billion. At 31 December 2009, the company employed a global workforce of approximately 96,000 associates. The success of the BMW Group has always been built on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company has therefore established ecological and social sustainability throughout the value chain, comprehensive product responsibility and a clear commitment to conserving resources as an integral part of its strategy. As a result of its efforts, the BMW Group has been ranked industry leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes for the last five years.

TV Footage will be available from June 2, 2010 onwards at: www.thenewsmarket.com

High res images can be downloaded from the “Photo” section at: https://newsroom.bmwgroup.com/global/en

To see the video on the 17th BMW Art Car designed by Jeff Koons, please go to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG83ETbo0xE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiTz7X2XOSk

For questions please contact:

Thomas Girst, Spokesperson Cultural Communications

Telephone: +49 89 382 24753, Fax: +49 89 382 10881

Antonia Walther, Cultural Communications

Telephone: + 49 89 382 10422, Fax: +49 89 382 10881

Media Website: https://newsroom.bmwgroup.com/global/en

E-mail: presse@bmw.de

Paris. At the premiere of the 17th BMW Art Car Jeff Koons unveiled and signed his car in front of 300 international VIP guests on June 1 in the Centre Pompidou, one of the world’s most prestigious cultural institutions for modern and contemporary art. It is the same place where Roy Lichtenstein back in 1977 first presented and signed his Art Car.

In the spirit of Calder, Stella, Lichtenstein, Warhol, BMW announced this year that the 17th Art Car created by Jeff Koons will race where the first rolling pieces of art by legendary artists raced – at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France on June 12-13, 2010. Koons’ canvas is a BMW M3 GT2, which was homologated to compete at this year’s running of the world’s most famous endurance race.

On June 2, between 11 am to 9 pm, the public will have the chance to see the Art Car free of charge in the Forum of the Centre Pompidou. At 5.30 pm Jeff Koons will participate in a book signing at the official book store of the museum before he will talk about his work in conversation with Alain Seban, President of the Centre Pompidou, at 6 pm at the Forum of the museum.

The Design Process

As part of his creative process, the artist collected images of race cars, related graphics, vibrant colors, speed and explosions. The resulting artwork of bright colors conceived by Koons is evocative of power, motion and bursting energy. Its silver interior along with the powerful exterior design, the Art Car will impart a dynamic appearance even when it’s standing still.

“These race cars are like life, they are powerful and there is a lot of energy,” said Koons. “You can participate with it, add to it and let yourself transcend with its energy. There is a lot of power under that hood and I want to let my ideas transcend with the car – it’s really to connect with that power”.

Koons has been in an intense collaboration with BMW’s team in Munich for months – melding his skill with sophisticated BMW engineering – to ensure that the 17th BMW Art Car will be race-ready for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Traveling back and forth to Germany many times since the February 2 announcement that Koons would create the 17th BMW Art Car, the artist has worked with the BMW engineering and design teams to conduct in-depth explorations of materials and application options that will prove crucial to optimizing both the aesthetic and aerodynamic attributes of the race car. Working with actual 3-D computer-aided design (CAD) models of the BMW M3 GT2, Koons could simulate the application of the graphic to the car’s surfaces and evaluate it from all angles.

Koons even donned a helmet and joined BMW’s Rahal Letterman Racing Team for testing in Sebring, Florida, on February 23. Koons was able to experience the M3 GT2 at race speed to further inspire his design. As Koons describes it, he witnessed “the raw unfiltered performance” of the M3 GT2 from the seat of a historic BMW M1 race car. Koons also drove a BMW M3 Coupe on the circuit to further the dynamic exercise.

Under Koons’ direct guidance and supervision, his BMW Art Car was produced in assistance with a team of BMW engineers and designers at Schmid Design, (ORT), Bavaria. The challenge to create the BMW Art Car had to do with using a light material and a design that would not interfere with the racecar's aerodynamics and weight. Timing was also an issue, as there was only a two month window between the first design sketches and the Paris world premiere. This is why digital print on car wrapping vinyl was used covered by a double clear-coating to bring out the color. To apply hundreds of dynamic lines of Koons' design onto the car, CAD designs were translated from 3D into 2D for the printing process and then painstakingly applied to the entire car as well as onto individual spare parts. Koons design incorporates many bright contrasting colors to communicate the aesthetics of power. The concept design was transformed into hard eged lines of color. Graphics of debris were added to the rear sides and back of the car to similute the power of the car. Furthermore, two graphic rings on the rear of the car represent supersonic acceleration.

Koons and BMW

The germination of Koons’ collaboration with BMW began in 2003, when he expressed his desire to create a BMW Art Car. His relationship with BMW started more than two decades ago when he drove a BMW while residing in Munich, home to the BMW Group headquarters. Koons is known for his heartfelt appreciation of cars. Earlier this year he was even recognized by music icon Bono of U2 as one of the ideal artists to design a car that would make the world fall in love with automobiles again.

Koons’ creative process for the BMW Art Car mirrors techniques, some borrowed from transportation design and development, which he regularly employs for his artistic production. For example, in the creation of Koons’ monumental sculptures, his studio uses 3-D CAD models to evaluate the surfaces, assembles them via methods found in bike chop shops, and paints them in a manner based on sophisticated automotive painting techniques.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans race

In April 2010, BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen announced the driver line-up for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Andy Priaulx (GB), Dirk Müller (DE) and Dirk Werner (DE) will race the BMW Art Car #79. Jörg Müller (DE), Augusto Farfus (BR), Uwe Alzen (DE) will drive the BMW Le Mans car #78.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is the world’s oldest endurance race in all of sports car racing, held annually since 1923 near the town of Le Mans, Sarthe, France. Commonly known as the Grand Prix of Endurance, it is organized by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO) and runs on a circuit containing closed public roads. The race is designed not only to test a car and driver’s ability to be quick, but also to last over a 24-hour period.

French auctioneer and racing driver Hervé Poulain first had the idea of asking an artist to paint the car he himself would compete with. Taking up this initiative in 1975, American artist Alexander Calder painted a BMW racing car, thus laying the foundation. The Art Car experiment was soon continued: a year later, Calder Art Car co-driver Sam Posey introduced Frank Stella to the idea of BMW Art Cars when the New York-based artist covered a BMW with his typical grid-like pattern. Stella’s work was followed by a series of celebrated pop artists: Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg. Apart from Rauschenberg’s Art Car, all these took part in the Le Mans 24-hour race, some of them enjoying remarkable success.

The BMW M3 GT2

Derived from the BMW M3 high-performance sports car, the BMW M3 GT2 boasts a 4.0-liter V8 engine with a maximum output of 500 bhp, an upgraded chassis, racing-caliber brakes, and extensive use of lightweight materials.  Able to reach 100 mph in 3.4 seconds, the BMW M3 GT2 is rapidly emerging as a real first year contender at this year’s event.

For the Comeback at 24 Le Mans BMW Motorsport is supported by numerous successful partners. This is why the BMW M3 GT2 will be labeled with the logos of Castrol, Crowne Plaza, Dunlop, Randstad, Sympatex, LuK, H&R, BBS and NGK for the race on the “Circuit de la Sarthe”.

BMW Art Cars

Since 1975, artists from throughout the world have turned BMW automobiles into art signifying a particular period through the Art Car program. In 2007, the latest installment was revealed with Olafur Eliasson’s “Your mobile expectations: BMW H2R project.” Many of the cars by the likes of Warhol, Lichtenstein, Stella, Rauschenberg, Hockney and Holzer have been exhibited in renowned museums throughout the world including the Louvre, the Guggenheim Museums, and the Shanghai Art Museum. They have been displayed at the BMW Museum in Munich, between 2006 and 2010 and many went on a world tour throughout Asia, Russia, Africa, India, the United States and Mexico. The Koons car number, “79,” pays tribute to the 1979 Andy Warhol car. The Warhol car was assigned the number “76,” an homage to the 1976 Frank Stella car, both of which raced at Le Mans.

The home of all BMW Art Cars is the BMW Museum in Munich. Starting in September, Koons’ 17th BMW Art Car will be presented there together with some of its predecessors.

With over 100 major projects worldwide, BMW Group cultural programs have been an integral part of the company’s contributions to society for almost 40 years.  Besides contemporary art, architecture and design, classical music and jazz are key components of this engagement.

The BMW Group

The BMW Group is one of the most successful manufacturers of automobiles and motorcycles in the world with its BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce brands. As a global company, the BMW Group operates 24 production facilities in 13 countries and has a global sales network in more than 140 countries.

The BMW Group achieved a global sales volume of approximately 1.29 million automobiles and over 87,000 motorcycles for the 2009 financial year. The pre-tax profit for 2009 was euro 413 million, revenues totalled euro 50.68 billion. At 31 December 2009, the company employed a global workforce of approximately 96,000 associates. The success of the BMW Group has always been built on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company has therefore established ecological and social sustainability throughout the value chain, comprehensive product responsibility and a clear commitment to conserving resources as an integral part of its strategy. As a result of its efforts, the BMW Group has been ranked industry leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes for the last five years.

TV Footage will be available from June 2, 2010 onwards at: www.thenewsmarket.com

To see the video on the 17th BMW Art Car designed by Jeff Koons, please go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG83ETbo0xE

For questions please contact:

Thomas Girst, Spokesperson Cultural Communications

Telephone: +49 89 382 24753, Fax: +49 89 382 10881

Antonia Walther, Cultural Communications

Telephone: + 49 89 382 10422, Fax: +49 89 382 10881

www.facebook.com/bmwgroupview

Media Website: https://newsroom.bmwgroup.com/global/en

E-mail: presse@bmw.de

Koons Reveals Preliminary Designs for the BMW M3 GT2  

New York In the spirit of Calder, Stella, Lichtenstein, Warhol, and Holzer, BMW announced today that the 17th Art Car created by Jeff Koons will race where the first rolling pieces of art by legendary artists raced – at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France, June 12-13, 2010. Koons’ canvas is a BMW M3 GT2, which was homologated to compete at this year’s running of the world’s most famous endurance race. In another nod to tradition, Koons will present the world premiere and sign his car at Paris’ Centre Pompidou on June 1, 2010, just as Roy Lichtenstein did in 1977.

Adding to the occasion, Koons released for the first time his preliminary design concept for the car today at a press conference in New York City.  As part of his creative process, the artist collected images of race cars and graphics, vibrant colors and speed. He layered them into a digital collage depicting his sources of inspiration.  The resulting graphic conceived by Koons – evocative of power, motion and light and rendered in the artist’s signature saturated hues on a black ground set against the car’s silver interior – will impart a dynamic appearance to the race car even when it’s standing still.

“These race cars are like life, they are powerful and there is a lot of energy,” said Koons. “You can participate with it, add to it and let yourself transcend with its energy. There is a lot of power under that hood and I want to let my ideas transcend with the car – it’s really to connect with that power.”

Koons was joined at the press conference by President of the Centre Pompidou Alain Seban, BMW of North America President Jim O’Donnell, BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen, and BMW Le Mans driver Andy Priaulx of Great Britain.

“This is a momentum building year for us that speaks to the essence of the brand and the latest chapter of the BMW Art Car program is certainly part of this,” said O’Donnell.  “It’s an absolute delight for all of us to be working with Jeff on this program that is part of the fabric of BMW.”

World Premiere at the Centre Pompidou, Paris

Paris’ Centre Pompidou is one of the world’s most prestigious cultural institutions for modern and contemporary art and is where Roy Lichtenstein first unveiled and signed his car in 1977 as Jeff Koons will on June 1. Also, the Koons car number, “79,” pays tribute to the 1979 Andy Warhol car.  The Warhol car was assigned the number “76,” an homage to the 1976 Frank Stella car, both of which raced at Le Mans.  

“Ever since it was created back in 1977, the Centre Pompidou has acted as an interface, a platform of exchange between creative art and society, striving to expose the larger public to the art of our time in the firm belief that art can foster a more innovative and flexible society,” said Alain Seban, President of the Centre Pompidou.  “For this reason the Centre Pompidou is glad to join BMW’s project which, I trust, can go a long way in bringing together creation and society by inviting the great artists of our time – from Roy Lichtenstein in 1977 to Jeff Koons today – to challenge the most mythical object of our era, the car, through a unique creation.”

The Design Process

“It is a fascinating and inspiring exercise to witness an artist present his or her point of view through one of our cars. To see Jeff Koons take his unique sensibility and bring it to a BMW race car as he works with our team to translate his vision into a race-ready car is to truly watch the connection be made between technical and artistic intelligence,” said Frank-Peter Arndt, member of the Board of Management for the BMW AG with responsibility for BMW Group’s international cultural formats.

Koons has been in an intense collaboration with BMW’s team in Munich for months – melding his skill with sophisticated BMW engineering – to ensure that the 17th BMW Art Car will be race-ready for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. 

Traveling back and forth to Germany several times since the February 2 announcement that Koons would create the 17th BMW Art Car, the artist has worked with the BMW engineering and design teams to conduct in-depth explorations of materials and application options that will prove crucial to optimizing both the aesthetic and aerodynamic attributes of the race car.  Working with actual 3-D computer-aided design (CAD) models of the BMW M3 GT2, Koons can simulate the application of the graphic to the car’s surfaces and evaluate it from all angles. 

Koons even donned a helmet and joined BMW’s American Le Mans Series race team for testing in Sebring, Florida, on February 23.   Koons was able to experience the M3 GT2 at race speed to further inspire his design.  As Koons describes it, he witnessed “the raw unfiltered performance” of the M3 GT2 from the seat of a historic BMW M1 race car. Koons also drove a BMW M3 Coupe on the circuit to further the dynamic exercise.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans race

Today, BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen announced the driver line-up for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.  Andy Priaulx (GB), Dirk Müller (DE) and Dirk Werner (DE) will race the BMW Art Car #79.  Jörg Müller (DE), Augusto Farfus (BR), Uwe Alzen (DE) will drive the BMW Le Mans car #78.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is the world’s oldest endurance race in all of sports car racing, held annually since 1923 near the town of Le Mans, Sarthe, France.  Commonly known as the Grand Prix of Endurance, it is organized by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO) and runs on a circuit containing closed public roads. The race is designed not only to test a car and driver’s ability to be quick, but also to last over a 24-hour period.

French auctioneer and racing driver Hervé Poulain first had the idea of asking an artist to paint the car he himself would compete with.  Taking up this initiative in 1975, American artist Alexander Calder painted a BMW racing car, thus laying the foundation.  The Art Car experiment was soon continued:  a year later, Calder Art Car co-driver Sam Posey introduced Frank Stella to the idea of BMW Art Cars when the New York-based artist covered a BMW with his typical grid-like pattern.  Stella’s work was followed by a series of celebrated pop artists:  Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg.  Apart from Rauschenberg’s Art Car, all these took part in the Le Mans 24-hour race, some of them enjoying remarkable success.

After taking a break in the 1980’s, the Art Car returned to its origins at Le Mans in 1999, when American concept artist Jenny Holzer “wrote” her truisms on a BMW V12 Le Mans race car.

The germination of Koons’ collaboration with BMW began in 2003, when he expressed his desire to create a BMW Art Car. His relationship with BMW started more than two decades ago when he drove a BMW while residing in Munich, home to the BMW Group headquarters.  Koons is known for his heartfelt appreciation of cars.  Earlier this year he was even recognized by music icon Bono of U2 as one of the ideal artists to design a car that would make the world fall in love with automobiles again.

Koons’ creative process for the BMW Art Car mirrors techniques, some borrowed from transportation design and development, which he regularly employs for his artistic production.  For example, in the creation of Koons’ monumental sculptures, his studio uses 3-D CAD models to evaluate the surfaces, assembles them via methods found in bike chop shops, and paints them in a manner based on sophisticated automotive painting techniques.

“It is fitting that Jeff Koons’ car will follow in the storied tradition of the renowned artists who created the early race-inspired BMW Art Cars,” said O’Donnell.  “We look forward to BMW’s return to Le Mans – and perhaps even sharing a toast with Jeff at the finish line.”

Derived from the BMW M3 high-performance sports car, the BMW M3 GT2 boasts a 4.0-liter V8 engine with a maximum output of 500 bhp, an upgraded chassis, racing-caliber brakes, and extensive use of lightweight materials.  Able to reach 100 mph in 3.4 seconds, the BMW M3 GT2 is rapidly emerging as a real first year contender at this year’s event.

BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen said, “The race in Le Mans is one of the most important events in international motorsport.  This makes it the perfect stage to revive the tradition of the BMW Art Car.  Jeff Koons’ work of art will leave a lasting impression with all those who see it, even after the BMW M3 GT2 has crossed the finish line.  BMW Art Cars have often also been able to impress with their sporting achievements.  I am optimistic that this will be the case again this year.”

Beginning in September, the Koons Art Car will be on view at the BMW Museum in Munich, as part of a special exhibition commemorating the program’s 35th anniversary.

BMW Art Cars

Since 1975, artists from throughout the world have turned BMW automobiles into art signifying a particular period through the Art Car program.  In 2007, the latest installment was revealed with Olafur Eliasson’s “Your mobile expectations: BMW H2R project.” Many of these have been exhibited in renowned museums throughout the world including the Louvre, the Guggenheim Museums, and the Shanghai Art Museum.  They have been displayed at the BMW Museum in Munich, between 2006 and 2010 and many went on a world tour throughout Asia, Russia, Africa, India, the United States and Mexico.

The home of all BMW Art Cars is the BMW Museum in Munich. Starting in September, Koons’ 17th BMW Art Car will be presented there together with some of its predecessors.

With over 100 major projects worldwide, BMW Group cultural programs have been an integral part of the company’s contributions to society for almost 40 years.  Besides contemporary art, architecture and design, classical music and jazz are key components of this engagement.

For a link to photos and more information, please visit: www.bmwusanews.com/artsandculture

www.independent-collectors.com/bmwartcars

 The BMW Group

The BMW Group is one of the most successful manufacturers of automobiles and motorcycles in the world with its BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce brands. As a global company, the BMW Group operates 24 production facilities in 13 countries and has a global sales network in more than 140 countries.

The BMW Group achieved a global sales volume of approximately 1.29 million automobiles and over 87,000 motorcycles for the 2009 financial year. The pre-tax profit for 2009 was euro 413 million, revenues totalled euro 50.68 billion. At 31 December 2009, the company employed a global workforce of approximately 96,000 associates.

The success of the BMW Group has always been built on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company has therefore established ecological and social sustainability throughout the value chain, comprehensive product responsibility and a clear commitment to conserving resources as an integral part of its strategy. As a result of its efforts, the BMW Group has been ranked industry leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes for the last five years.

BMW Group Corporate Communications

Stacy Morris, Corporate Communications, BMW of North America

Telephone: +1 201 370 5134, stacy.morris@bmwna.com

Thomas Girst, Spokesperson Cultural Communications, BMW AG

Telephone: +49 89 382 24753, thomas.girst@bmw.de

Munich./Los Angeles. Imagine a canvas nearly as large as a football field. On
it bold, swirling shapes in primary colors like red, yellow and blue. As the
eye uncovers the rhythm of the lines, curves, circles and color splotches,
something else is revealed: these forms must have been created by tire treads!
A work of art like no other, created by an artist like no other - the new BMW
Z4 Roadster.

Over the years BMW has offered great contemporary artists the chance to express
themselves on the surfaces of a variety of the marque's sports cars. However,
the art performance created by the young South-African Robin Rhode daringly
moves beyond the concept behind the BMW Art Car Collection. Here the car is no
longer just a stunning model, but itself executing artist. "This work is an
expression of painting in action - my hope is to communicate the power and
thrill inherent in the creation of art", says Rhode. "For me, the use of an
untraditional paintbrush like a high performance car is a great way to
investigate the relationship between emotion, technology and industrial
creativity." The development of the picture, this process of formation itself
is as important as the completed oeuvre. For this reason the Z4 performance is
suggestively titled "An Expression of Joy".

The powerful and vibrant images created by the treads on the huge canvas appear
dynamic and spontaneous, as if created out of the whim of the moment. Yet each
movement had been painstakingly planned to the last detail and was the result
of an immense technical effort. Unlike the legendary "action paintings" created
by Jackson Pollock nothing was left to chance. As an artist working at the
cutting edge of performing and fine arts, Robin Rhode is an experienced planner
and capable of organizing and directing a large technical staff, but with "An
Expression of Joy" even he broke new ground. This in every respect
extraordinary work of art that was to emerge in the huge Downey Studios of Los
Angeles offered another equally challenging aspect. During the creation of the
painting, prize-winning young director Jake Scott intended to film the complete
performance for the TV campaign accompanying the new Z4 Roadster's launch in
2009.

But how was the palette of colors actually applied to the tires? How was the
BMW Z4 harnessed to Robin Rhode's specific concept? And how was Jake Scott able
to transform this dynamic act of creation into an equally fascinating film?
These questions reflect how many demanding aspects needed to be dealt with in
order to create a performance blending high tech and artistic vision.
Obviously, in the beginning was an idea. The idea was to present the innovative
next generation of the BMW Z4 in a totally unusual location. "One source of
inspiration was the seminal work of Gerhard Richter's series of paintings 'Red,
Yellow, Blue' made in 1973 for the company headquarters in Munich, Germany",
Rhode explains. Another reference point were the experimental optic animations
from the 1920's and German Expressionist Film. "The tracks left by the tires
combine the two-dimensional plane of the picture with the three-dimensional
space of the actual driving experience."

The artist began by sketches, using black finger paints on paper to draw an
outline of the general shapes and rhythms. Then Robin Rhode created the visual
equivalent of a storyboard with the exact details of each driving sequence and
the specific color used. Of course, the driver received a copy of the
storyboard that he was able to prop up in the cockpit. Since it was nearly
impossible to follow the development of the emerging tracks, given the sheer
size of the pictoral dimensions, Rhode also furnished a miniature of "An
Expression of Joy" complete with two models of the car in order to simulate
driving maneuvers in advance of the actual "paint drive".

The art performance was a challenge for the driver as well as driving the MINI
for the movie "Italian Job". Accustomed to taking high performance cars to
their limit on test tracks, here he needed to follow the exacting choreography
established by Rhode. Which meant executing the same moves back and forth
several times if the artist wasn't satisfied by the specific color intensity,
and yet keeping the tracks of the treads perfectly aligned each time. Each of
the colors was individually applied through remote-controlled nozzles mounted
near the axles of the roadster. To avoid an accidental mix of the colors due to
residue in the treads, new sets of tires were constantly being rolled in and
carefully exchanged, a feat of logistics in itself. From time to time a
sock-clad Robin Rhode literally stepped into the picture to pour on more color,
where necessary adding generous drips. An alluring aspect accidentally created
by this motorized paint brush were the sprays and splotches of color
highlighting the wheel casings of the Z4, resulting in visual traces and echoes
of the dynamics of the composition. The monumental canvas itself was composed
of individual segments that had been attached together to create a surface
measuring 100' by 200' and thus allowing the driving and painting process to be
sequenced in quadrants. This solution also benefits all future storing and
moving of the artwork. Segments of the spectacular giant picture will be on the
road in 2009, first to be shown at the Detroit Motor Show.

Robin Rhode and his team executed the project in 12 hours. That was also the
time frame essentially allotted to director Jake Scott and his crew in which to
shoot the Z4's chromatic driving movements. The challenge was that each segment
of his film for the BMW campaign needed to be "just right" the first time
around. The usual number of takes just would not possible for this kind of
recording. Scott, who is just wrapping up his first feature-length film, has
won numerous prizes for music videos and commercials. The cinematographer was
able to draw on his experience documenting rock concerts in order to deal with
the singular character of this particular live performance. The dynamic
undertaking of a car painting was captured with 45 simultaneous camera angles.
So, while Robin Rhode was watching the color choreography unfurl, Jake Scott
kept a critical eye on all the many screens monitoring the camera movements.
"It is always a gift for a filmmaker to watch an artist of any discipline
work", Scott recounts. "It is creation at its core and I have been privileged
to observe musicians, actors and now a significant, young artist. I am excited
to showcase the rarely seen link between art and technology in action."

The huge space of the studio and the giant dimensions of the lowered tub in
which the canvas had been spread out, offered exciting vantage points for the
placement of the cameras. At the same time it also meant coordinating two
highly complex and diverse projects - the actual art performance and the
shooting of a TV commercial - down to the last second. But despite this double
challenge demanding concentration and precision timing the atmosphere
surrounding all the teams involved was relaxed.

Robin Rhode

The artist, who was born in 1976 in Cape Town and now lives in Berlin, has made
a name for himself in the past few years on account of his distinctive artistic
work. His oeuvre centers on performances that have evolved from his experiences
as a highschool student growing in the Johannesburg suburbs, supplemented
culture (sports, music, and fashion) that he likes to mingle with the process
of "making art". In 2001, Rhode was nominated for South Africa's FNB Vita Art
Prize. He has been included in several group exhibitions, including
Dislocation. Image. Identity. South Africa, Centro Cultural de Maria, O'Porto,
Portugal (2002); Shelf Life, Gasworks Gallery, London, England (2001); and
Juncture, The Granary, Cape Town, and Studio Voltaire, London (2001). His solo
exhibitions include Fresh: Robin Rhode at South Africa National Gallery, Cape
Town (2000).

Jake Scott

The Englishman Jake Scott, born 1965, has been directing commercials and music
videos for over 15 years, during which time he has accumulated stellar
recognition in his field such as numerous MTV awards, a Grammy Nomination, an
Emmy and the Grand Prix at Cannes. His clients include renowned brands like
Adidas, American Express, AOL, Coca Cola and JP Morgan. The list of artists he
has worked with also reads like a Who's Who of the music industry: REM, U2,
Smashing Pumpkins and George Michaels. Jake Scott who ist the son of famous
director Sir Ridley Scott ("Alien", "Blade Runner", "Gladiator") has just
completed work on his second feature-length film, "Welcome to the Riley's" with
"Sopranos" star James Gandolfini.

Munich/New York. The Goethe Institute in New York will be changing its profile
and presenting new projects in the future: On 8 February, the new "Ludlow 38"
exhibition space will be opening in the centre of the lively gallery district
in the Lower East Side, near Chinatown and not far from the New Museum of
Contemporary Art, in cooperation with Kunstverein München and MINI as its
exclusive partners.

The New York Goethe Institute's new "Ludlow 38" exhibition space is totally
given over to contemporary art. The artists Ethan Breckenridge and Liam Gillick
designed the space, which is located in the heart of the booming gallery scene
on the Lower East Side. Kunstverein München, represented by Stefan Kalmár and
Daniel Pies, will be arranging exhibitions, discussions and performances for a
year, under the title "USA 2008" and featuring German and international
artists.

On 8 February, the new gallery will be formally opened with the exhibition
"publish and be damned", a London archive of independent journals. Over 300
international publications will be presented in what is probably the most
comprehensive collection of its kind. British curators Emily Pethick (Director
of the Showroom in London), Kit Hammonds (curator of the South London Gallery)
and Sarah McCrory (curator of "publish and be damned") have been collecting
these works since 2004. The exhibition presents fanzines (magazines by fans for
fans) such as "Ziggy", "Zowie", "Blondiak", "Dark Star" and "Useless" or
magazines such as "Control", "Pablo internacional", "Inventory". In addition,
journals such as "Dot Dot Dot", "Copenhagen Free University/Infopool",
"Metronome", "Anarchitektur", "Fucking Good Art" and glossy magazines such as
"Crash!" will be on display. The archive also contains video and cassette
editions plus radio plays and independent record labels, including "Another
Album" and "Junior Aspirin". The exhibition includes works by artists such as
Jeremy Deller, Scott King, Pablo Bronstein, Raymond Pettibon, Spartacus
Chetwynd, Nils Norman, Stephan Dillemuth, Stephan Willats, Cathy Lomax, Eleanor
Brown, Aline Bouvy, Sonia Dermience and Meeuw Muzak.

"Ludlow 38" has been made possible through a collaboration with MINI. "MINI is
proud of its long-term collaboration with the Goethe Institute. Our involvement
in "Ludlow 38" in the Lower East Side is the perfect platform in New York for
international, sophisticated, contemporary art", says Dr Kay Segler, Head of
Brand MINI, delightedly. In its partnership with brands like "Bisazza" and its
involvement with FIAC 2007 or the International Talent Support / MINI
International Photo Award in Triest, MINI is also remaining true to itself in
the area of culture through unconventional projects.

"Ludlow 38"
is located at 38 Ludlow Street 38 (between Grand and Hester Street),
New York, 10002.
Opening hours: Thursday, Friday and Saturday, from 12 noon to 8 p.m.
or by personal arrangement.
Images and further information can be obtained from Lauren Cerand,
+1-917-533-0103 or via lcerand@gmail.com.

You can also find more information about "Ludlow 38" at:
http://www.goethe.de/ins/us/ney/enindex.htm

If you have any queries, please contact:

Corporate Communication

Giuseppe Faranna, BMW Group, PR Programme MINI und BMW
Telephone: +49 (0)89 382- 51735, fax: +49 (0)89 382- 28017

Thomas Girst, BMW Group, Sprecher Kulturkommunikation
Telephone: +49 (0)89 382- 24753, fax: +49 (0)89 382- 28017

Internet: https://newsroom.bmwgroup.com/global/en
E-mail: presse@bmw.de