Cape Town/Munich. As part of Julie Mehretu’s ongoing BMW Art Car project, the African Film and Media Arts Collective (AFMAC) was launched in April 2025 by the internationally renowned painter in collaboration with Emmy-nominated film producer Mehret Mandefro and the BMW Group. The initiative brings together artists and filmmakers from across Africa and the diaspora to explore new forms of creation and cultural dialogue in workshops led by internationally renowned artists.

From January 27–31, 2026, AFMAC will host its final workshop in Cape Town, following successful sessions in Lagos, Tangier, Nairobi, and Dakar. For this closing edition, London-based The Otolith Group—founded in 2002 by Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun—will lead the workshop. Known for their interdisciplinary approach spanning film, installation, and performance, their work investigates histories of science fiction and global cultural legacies. Through research-driven art, they aim to spark public dialogue and connect theory, practice, and exhibition. Titled African Cosmotechnics: Animation, Animism, Abstraction, Automotion, Automation, Aesthetics their workshop program brings artists, writers, theorists, animators, theatre-makers, and filmmakers together to approach animation not only as technique or as genre, but as a way of rethinking the relations between images, sounds, and voices. It is not intended as a technical workshop for producing animation but for rethinking what animation could, might, or should be.

AFMAC and its local partner in Cape Town, Chimurenga, offer a public screening of Infinity Minus Infinity with an ensuing art talk with The Otolith Group on January 31, 2026, at 7.30pm. The 2019 video work is an audiovisual performance combining dance, music, spoken word, and animation to reflect on how historical racism and colonialism continue to shape today’s social and environmental crises.

Chimurenga is a platform for African ideas and cultural production, founded by Ntone Edjabe in Cape Town in 2002. The aim of Chimurenga’s activities is not just to produce new knowledge, but to express the intensities of our world, to capture those forces, and to take action. Chimurenga publishes “Chimurenga Magazine”, the quarterly broadsheet “The Chronic”, and curates the Chimurenga Library—an evolving archive reimagining African knowledge systems.

Cape Town also hosts the project’s culmination: the exhibition “Scaling Intentions” at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, from December 11, 2026 to August 15, 2027. Each AFMAC lead artist will present a film inspired by the respective workshop, shown alongside Julie Mehretu’s BMW Art Car #20, a BMW M Hybrid V8 first unveiled at the Centre Pompidou in 2024. The films are intended as an anthology of contemporary African film and media art making.

AFMAC’s mission is to foster sustainable artistic networks and strengthen creative communities across Africa. Through the workshops, participants explore cultural heritage, identity, and experimentation using archival African film and media materials. They are given the opportunity to develop their own creative approaches for new forms of media art for the future.

“The magic of bringing people together starts with us. AFMAC creates forums for conversations in small, critical masses and surfaces resources to take the next steps. We build on the work of our local cultural partners: They already created a grounded cultural infrastructure, showing that art is not just a nice-to-have but a must-have. The talent and cultural energy emerging from these cities is electric – culture cannot be gated, it will always find a way to be heard,“ says Mehret Mandefro, co-founder of AFMAC.

“At BMW Group South Africa, we see our role as more than mobility, it’s about creating space for connection, conversation and shared progress,” says Thilosh Moodally, Director of Government Affairs and Communications at BMW Group South Africa. “Through initiatives such as AFMAC, we’re proud to support creative communities that amplify African voices, encourage creative freedom and open up meaningful cultural exchange. It’s part of how we show up beyond our products, with people and art at the centre of this project, we ensure that we build more than just cars, we build communities”.

Get deeper insights into AFMAC on the website www.afmac.institute, via Instagram at @a.f.m.a.c. or tune into Julie Mehretu’s interview on CNN African Voices.

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

African Film and Media Arts Collective – Past and future stations
April 2025: Lagos, Nigeria, in partnership with Angels & Muse
Lead artist: Coco Fusco

July 2025: Tangier, Morocco, in partnership with Cinematheque de Tanger
Lead artist: Zeresenay Berhane Mehari

October 2025: Nairobi, Kenya, in partnership with Docubox
Lead artists: Jim Chuchu and Wanuri Kahiu

December 2025: Dakar, Senegal, in partnership with Fanta Sy and Raw Material Company
Lead artist: Mati Diop

January 2026: Cape Town, South Africa, in partnership with Chimurenga
Lead artist: The Otolith Group

11 December 2026 – 15 August 2027: Final exhibition at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), Cape Town, South Africa

Biographies of the founders and Cape Town lead artists

Julie Mehretu is a world-renowned American artist, born in Addis Ababa in 1970. Mehretu’s practice in painting, drawing and printmaking engages the viewer in a dynamic visual articulation of contemporary experience. Notable accolades include the MacArthur Award, the US Department of State Medal of Arts Award, and, in 2025, she was awarded the rank of Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. Her work has been exhibited widely at museums, biennials and galleries around the globe. Mehretu is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Design and the National Academy of Sciences in Ethiopia. She sits on the board of the Whitney Museum of American Art, is a trustee and alumna of the American Academy in Berlin, a Global Council Member at Zeitz MOCAA, and is co-founder and board member of Denniston Hill. Mehretu lives and works in New York City.

Mehret Mandefro is an Emmy-nominated producer, writer, and serial entrepreneur born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Her body of work explores hidden truths and spans documentary and fiction, film and television, art and science. She co-founded the multi-media production company Truth Aid Media and founded the research enterprise Truth Aid Impact, A51 Pictures in Ethiopia, as well as the Realness Institute in South Africa. She was formerly the Executive Producer of Kana Television in Ethiopia and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science.

The Otolith Group was founded in London in 2002 by curators and artists Anjalika Sagar, born 1968, and Kodwo Eshun, born 1967 both in London. The artist-led collective follows a research-based work that spans across moving images, audio, performance, and installations and engages with post-human discourses, building intergenerational and cross-cultural platforms.

Biographies of further lead artists

Jim Chuchu is a singer, songwriter, music producer, director, photographer, and visual artist. He helped establish the Nest Collective, a multidisciplinary art space and artists’ collective in Nairobi. His first short film “Homecoming” was featured at various film festivals from Durban to Locarno. Chuchu’s photography series “Pagans” was highlighted at Dak’Art 2014, the 11th edition of Africa’s longest running biennial of contemporary art.

Robin Coste Lewis, born in 1964 in Compton, California, is the author of “Voyage of the Sable Venus” (2015), which won the National Book Award for Poetry. The former poet laureate of Los Angeles, Lewis holds a PhD in Poetry and Visual Studies from the University of Southern California, an MFA in poetry from New York University, an MTS in Sanskrit and comparative religious literature from the Divinity School at Harvard University, and a BA from Hampshire College in post-colonial literature and creative writing. Her work has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Transition, and The Massachusetts Review. Lewis has taught at Hampshire College, Hunter College, Wheaton College, and the NYU Low-Residency MFA in Paris. She is currently writer in residence at the University of Southern California.

Mati Diop is a French-Senegalese filmmaker born in Paris in 1982. With her first feature film, “Atlantics“ (2019), which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival followed by “Dahomey“ (2024) awarded by The Golden Bear of Berlinale, (both shortlisted at the Oscars), she has established herself as one of the leading figures of international auteur cinema and a new wave in African and diasporic cinema.

Coco Fusco born in 1960 in New York City is a video and performance artist. With her multidisciplinary practice, Fusco explores the ways that intercultural dynamics affect the construction of the self and ideas about cultural otherness. Her work is in the collections of major museums worldwide and she received numerous awards.

Wanuri Kahiu is an award-winning filmmaker, speaker, and science fiction writer. Her film, “Rafiki,“ was the first Kenyan film to screen at Cannes, earning global recognition. Named one of TIME’s 100 Next in 2019, she is a cultural leader for the World Economic Forum and an advocate for freedom of expression. Through AFROBUBBLEGUM, Kahiu champions fun, fierce and frivolous African art. She directed “Washington Black” for Hulu/20th Century Fox, Netflix’s “Look Both Ways,” and is set to direct Disney’s “Once on This Island”.

Zeresenay Berhane Mehari, born in 1974, is an Ethiopian filmmaker and co-founder of A51 Pictures. He is notable as the director of the critically acclaimed films “Difret” (winner of Sundance and Berlinale Panorama Audience Awards) and “Sweetness in the Belly”. Apart from cinema, he co-founded and served as the Head of Original Content for Kana Television, the largest free-to-air, private satellite entertainment TV channel in Ethiopia.

Munich/ Paris. The BMW Art Car World Tour, a celebration of the fusion between art and automotive innovation, marked the 50th anniversary of the BMW Art Car Collection in 2025 with an extraordinary journey across five continents. Featuring over 45 stops in more than 30 countries, the tour captivated hundreds of thousands of visitors with its iconic collection of 20 BMW Art Cars, each a masterpiece created by some of the world’s most renowned artists. As the curtain falls on a remarkable year, the tour is set to continue its ambitious trajectory in 2026, beginning with a spectacular exhibition at Rétromobile in Paris.

The BMW Art Car World Tour: Reflecting on a global cultural success in 2025 
The 2025 leg of the BMW Art Car World Tour was a resounding success and reached over 2 million visitors across flagship art fairs, museums, motorsport events and cultural institutions worldwide. Some of the highlights included stops at Art Basel Hong Kong, Art Dubai, Auto Shanghai, Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este, Ultrace in Poland, 24 Hours of Le Mans and Le Mans Classic, Louwman Museum in The Hague, Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and The Bridge in the USA, Goodwood Revival, Contemporary Istanbul, Zoute Grand Prix in Belgium, Frieze London, and ADI Design Museum in Milan.

Each stop offered a unique opportunity for audiences to engage with the collection, which features works by renowned artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jenny Holzer, and Julie Mehretu. During art talks and accompanying events, visitors had the opportunity to learn background information about the ‘rolling sculptures’ on display and the history of the renowned collection. The Art Cars, ranging from racing thoroughbreds to rare production vehicles, showcased the diversity of artistic expression and BMW’s unwavering commitment to cultural engagement. The initiative, which began in 1975 with Alexander Calder’s reimagined BMW 3.0 CSL, has grown into a global phenomenon, uniting art and automotive enthusiasts alike.

Becoming the first BMW in the National Historic Vehicle Register, the BMW Art Car by Andy Warhol was officially added to the National Heritage Registry of the United States in 2025, underlining the collection’s significance not only as a BMW initiative, but as a lasting contribution to global cultural history.

Opening the next chapter: Rétromobile 2026
The celebration continues in 2026, with the first stop of the BMW Art Car World Tour at Rétromobile in Paris. From 28 January to 1 February, Rétromobile at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles will host a reunion of all seven BMW Art Cars that have competed at the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans. This exhibition will feature iconic models, including the vivid colours of Andy Warhol’s BMW M1 and the bold statements of Jenny Holzer’s BMW V12 LMR. At the centre of the exhibition hall, BMW and Rétromobile will present a display inspired by the concept of a 'legendary garage':

• #1 I Alexander Calder, BMW 3.0 CSL (1975)
• #2 I Frank Stella, BMW 3.0 CSL (1976)
• #3 I Roy Lichtenstein, BMW 320i Turbo (1977)
• #4 I Andy Warhol, BMW M1 (1979)
• #15 I Jenny Holzer, BMW V12 LMR (1999)
• #17 I Jeff Koons, BMW M3 GT2 (2010)
• #20 I Julie Mehretu, BMW M Hybrid V8 (2024)

Rétromobile, celebrating its own 50th anniversary, provides the perfect stage for this historic gathering. Visitors will have the rare opportunity to witness the intersection of art, motorsport, and history, as the BMW Art Cars take centre stage in one of the world’s most prestigious automotive events. The exhibition promises to be a visual feast, offering deeper insights into the creative processes of the artists and the cultural significance of the collection.

Rétromobile, often described as 'the world's most beautiful temporary garage', has been a gathering place for enthusiasts of exceptional vehicles since 1976. This international event, held in Paris, is the first show of the season for classic car lovers. For half a century, the show has attracted those who appreciate cars for their history and heritage rather than their performance. For its 50th edition, and for the first time in its history, Rétromobile is honoured to receive the high patronage of the French Ministry of Culture. This distinction confirms the major role played by the show in promoting a unique automotive heritage, a true cultural asset for France, recognised both nationally and internationally.

Display of Alexander Calder’s BMW Art Car in the centre of Paris
As part of the anniversary of Rétromobile and the BMW Art Car Collection, the BMW Art Car #1 by Alexander Calder is on display free of charge in the courtyard of the Hôtel de la Marine in Paris from 16 to 26 January. The Hôtel de la Marine, an 18th-century gem located on Place de la Concorde in Paris, opened to the public in June 2021 after a restoration campaign led by the Centre des Monuments Nationaux.

2026 is also a significant anniversary for the artist Alexander Calder: In 1926, Calder came to Paris and created his iconic Cirque. To celebrate the centenary of Calder’s arrival in France, the Fondation Louis Vuitton is holding a major retrospective in his honour this year. Furthermore, the Whitney Museum in New York has been devoting the exhibition “High Wire: Calder’s Circus at 100“ to his legendary work (since October 2025).

“After a year of waiting and preparations, the 50th edition of the Rétromobile show will open its doors in a few days, on 28 January. More than ever, we are eager to unveil the exhibition of the seven BMW Art Cars that participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which will be stopping in France for the first time. In the meantime, fans of the brand and the show can already admire Alexander Calder's BMW Art Car / 3.0 CSL in the courtyard of the Hôtel de la Marine, Place de la Concorde, until 26 January,“ says Romain Grabowski, Director of Rétromobile.

“Celebrating 50 years of the BMW Art Cars collection is above all a tribute to a visionary audacity that began half a century ago, when art and motor racing came together for the first time. This exceptional exhibition at Rétromobile marks a unique moment where creativity, innovation and heritage meet. The BMW Art Cars embody the very essence of our brand: a passion for design, performance and creative freedom. Bringing these rolling works of art together and sharing them with the public illustrates how art and mobility are shaping the future together,“ says Vincent Salimon, CEO BMW Group France.

Practical information 
BMW Art Car exhibition at Rétromobile
From 28 January to 1 February 2026
Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, 1 Pl. de la Prte de Versailles, 75015 Paris
For access to Rétromobile, please register here: PRESS ACCREDITATION

Exhibition of Alexander Calder's BMW Art Car at Hôtel de la Marine
From 16 to 26 January 2026, 8 am to midnight
Free admission
Courtyard of the Hôtel de la Marine, 2 place de la Concorde, 75008 Paris

Upcoming BMW Art Car World Tour 2026
Next stop of the BMW Art Car World Tour after Rétromobileinclude a presentation of Ernst Fuchs‘ and Jeff Koons‘ ‘rolling sculptures’ at RETRO CLASSICS in Stuttgart (February) as well as displays at Art Basel (Doha & Hong Kong), Turkey, Romania, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, and Germany. Furthermore, an exhibition of the BMW Art Cars is planned at the BMW Welt in Munich in summer 2026.

The BMW Art Car Collection
The BMW Art Car initiative, born from the vision of French racing driver and art dealer Hervé Poulain and BMW Head of Motorsport Jochen Neerpasch, has become a cornerstone of BMW’s cultural engagement. Over the decades, the collection has grown to include works by Frank Stella, Robert Rauschenberg, Esther Mahlangu, David Hockney, Jeff Koons, and many others, each contributing their unique artistic perspective.

BMW’s commitment to culture extends far beyond the BMW Art Car Collection, encompassing more than a hundred initiatives across contemporary art, music, film, and design. The company’s dedication to fostering creativity and innovation continues to resonate globally, as evidenced by the success of the Art Car World Tour.

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

Milan/Munich. The BMW Art Car World Tour is set to arrive in Milan at the ADI Design Museum, marking a major milestone in the celebration of five decades of artistic innovation. From 4 December 2025 to 8 January 2026, visitors will have the opportunity to experience eight iconic BMW Art Cars designed by internationally renowned artists such as Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jeff Koons. Having previously travelled to Art Basel Hong Kong, Le Mans Classic in France, the Bridge in USA, Louwman Museum in the Netherlands, Belgium’s Zoute Grand Prix and over 45 further stops in more than 30 countries across the globe, the BMW Art Car World Tour will conclude this year in Milan before continuing on to Rétromobile in Paris in 2026.

Massimiliano Di Silvestre, President of BMW Italia says: “Celebrating 50 years of the BMW Art Cars is truly a privilege and a great emotion for us, as it allows us to express our commitment to the world of art and design, which finds the perfect setting in Italy. Having eight cars on display at the ADI Museum in Milan also means hosting the exhibition with the highest number of BMW Art Cars featured in the 2025 world anniversary tour — a strong sign of our commitment and our desire to convey the brand’s values to enthusiasts, customers, media and partners.”

The Italian leg of the Art Car World Tour kicked off at the Concorso d'Eleganza 2025, where the Sandro Chia Art Car was exhibited alongside the entire BMW Art Car miniature collection. On 29 and 30 November, the tour continues at the Nanni Nember “House of BMW Brescia”, where three legendary BMW Art Cars will be on display together with the new BMW iX3, the first model of the “Neue Klasse”. Located in the heart of Milan, a global capital of fashion and design, the ADI Design Museum will provide the perfect setting to showcase eight vehicles from the world-renowned collection to close the year:

• #1 I Alexander Calder, BMW 3.0 CSL (1975) 
• #2 I Frank Stella, BMW 3.0 CSL (1976) 
• #3 I Roy Lichtenstein, BMW 320i Turbo (1977) 
• #12 I Esther Mahlangu, BMW 525i (1991)
• #13 | Sandro Chia, BMW M3 GTR (1992)
• #15 | Jenny Holzer, BMW V12 LMR (1999)
• #17 | Jeff Koons, BMW M3 GT2 (2010)
• #20 | Julie Mehretu, BMW M Hybrid V8 (2024)

ADI Design Museum
The ADI Design Museum in Milan celebrates both Italian and international creativity and innovation. Since 2021, it has showcased award-winning works that have shaped the history of industrial design and aesthetics. Located in the heart of the city, the museum occupies a repurposed industrial space that harmoniously blends historical architecture with contemporary style, offering an ideal setting for exhibitions exploring the intersection of art, innovation, and culture.

Celebrating 50 Years: The BMW Art Car Collection
Milan takes its place on the global stage as part of the ever-expanding BMW Art Car World Tour, a journey that will span continents and continue well into 2026. Marking the 50th anniversary of this iconic series, the tour brings together a constellation of exhibitions across five continents, enhanced by a vibrant array of events.

The BMW Art Car initiative was born in 1975 when French racing driver and art dealer Hervé Poulain, in collaboration with BMW’s then Head of Motorsport, Jochen Neerpasch, invited artist Alexander Calder to transform a car into a work of art. The result was a strikingly reimagined BMW 3.0 CSL, which not only became a visual masterpiece but also competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, earning widespread acclaim. Over the years, the collection has grown to include contributions from legendary artists such as Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Esther Mahlangu, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Jeff Koons and Julie Mehretu, each bringing their unique vision and style to the project.

Following the 50th anniversary of the BMW Art Car Collection and the BMW 3 Series this year, car enthusiasts can look forward to another jubilee next year: 2026 will mark the 50th anniversary of Rétromobile, one of the world’s most prestigious automotive shows dedicated to the classic car sector. To celebrate this milestone, BMW is bringing together all BMW Art Cars that have raced at Le Mans for a spectacular reunion in Paris early next year. Find out more about this event here.

Showcasing the collection of 20 iconic BMW Art Cars, the BMW Art Car World Tour serves as a testament to the company’s deep-rooted commitment to global cultural engagement – spanning more than a hundred initiatives across contemporary art, music, film and design. Follow the journey here.

Practical Information
The Art Cars World tour exhibition In Milan will be on display from 4 December 2025 to 8 January 2026, at the ADI Design Museum in Milan.

ADI Design Museum:
Piazza Compasso d’Oro 1
20154 Milano

Opening times:
Monday – Sunday: 10.30 am to 8 pm (last entrance 7.15 pm)

Friday closedFor more information, please visit: https://www.adidesignmuseum.org/en/

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

A MINI Portugal e o artista Alexandre Farto, mais conhecido como Vhils, revelam uma nova obra no âmbito da sua parceria, que desde 2021 tem levado a arte urbana para o universo automóvel. A mais recente criação resulta numa intervenção única no novo MINI Aceman elétrico, transformando-o numa peça de mobilidade sustentável, interativa e carregada de personalidade.

Uma peça viva da cidade, esculpida em papel e memória

Neste projeto, Vhils interveio sobre o MINI Aceman recorrendo à mesma técnica utilizada nos billboards, que consiste na aplicação de múltiplas camadas de cartazes – reminiscência das paredes urbanas que acumulam camadas de tempo e cultura, para depois serem esculpidas, revelando detalhes icónicos do veículo como o logótipo, rodas ou superfícies envidraçadas.

A obra evoca a forma como as cidades se transformam com o tempo, com cada camada a representar uma época, uma voz ou uma memória coletiva. Ao esculpir essas camadas, o artista revela não só elementos visuais do MINI, mas também um diálogo entre passado e presente, entre o que está à vista e o que permanece por descobrir.

“Este ano, passamos do artesanal, com o Tracery, ao tecnológico, com o Mini Aceman. Com a técnica usada nos billboards, uma das suas primeiras técnicas, Vhils criou layers que, uma vez escavados e cortados, revelaram depois o que está escondido, o que não se vê. Um rosto, um olhar, uma identidade e uma memória.”destaca a directora do VHILSTUDIO, Filomena Raínho.

Uma apresentação pública e interativa

A nova peça foi revelada a 25 de novembro, no VHILSTUDIO, no Barreiro, perante convidados, representantes da marca e imprensa. Durante o evento de apresentação, os presentes tiveram a oportunidade de assistir ao momento final do processo criativo, com o artista a esculpir ao vivo os últimos detalhes da obra.

Mais do que um veículo, esta criação afirma-se como uma instalação artística itinerante, com potencial para integrar exposições, ativações culturais e conteúdos digitais da marca MINI ao longo de 2026.

Uma parceria que celebra a expressão criativa

Desde 2022, a parceria entre a MINI Portugal e o VHILSTUDIO tem dado origem a projetos artísticos que reinterpretam o legado da marca através da lente da arte urbana. Desde intervenções de grande escala, como a homenagem a Sir Alec Issigonis, até à escultura TRACERY num MINI clássico, esta colaboração tem afirmado a MINI como uma marca que vive o espaço urbano com autenticidade e visão.

“É no espaço urbano que o ADN da MINI nasceu, evoluiu e continua a afirmar-se como um símbolo de mobilidade inteligente, compacta e com personalidade. Esta nova colaboração com o Vhils reforça exatamente isso: a capacidade de olhar para a cidade não apenas como um espaço de passagem, mas como um palco de histórias, identidade e expressão. O Vhils é o artista ideal para materializar esta visão, porque tal como a MINI, vê na cidade muito mais do que edifícios e trânsito. Vê camadas, vozes, memória. E transforma tudo isso em arte”, afirma Gonçalo Empis, Head of MINI Portugal.

London/Munich. From October 15 to 19, Frieze London and Frieze Masters will return to London’s Regent’s Park. As one of Frieze’s long-standing global partners since 2004, BMW honours the artistic work of David Hockney as part of the BMW Art Car World Tour and provides VIP shuttle service. Frieze London takes its place on the global stage as part of the ever-expanding BMW Art Car World Tour, a journey that will span continents and continue well into 2026. Marking the 50th anniversary of this iconic series, the tour brings together a constellation of exhibitions across five continents, enriched by a vibrant array of events.

The iconic Art Car #14, designed by David Hockney 30 years ago, will be on display in The Lobby of The Peninsula London from October 14 to November 3. During the “Peninsula Classic Car Afternoon Tea” which runs through November 18 there will be a special opportunity to engage with Hockney’s Art Car: BMW representatives will dive deep into the origins and lead through the journey of Hockney’s Art Car design on October 14 and 15. Sculptural culinary delights will be served to bring together the British tea tradition and the BMW Art Cars’ golden jubilee. The final days of the exhibition coincide with RM Sotheby’s Classic Car auction presented in partnership with the Royal Automobile Club which brings a selection of significant automobiles– from historic treasures to modern collectibles – to The Peninsula.

David Hockney’s BMW 850CSi puts a new spin on the traditional idea of a car’s paintwork by effectively turning the car inside out. “I thought it would be a good idea to show the car as if one could see inside,” he said. Like an X-ray, Hockney’s design reveals the anatomy of the car and its occupants: the door sports an outline of the driver, and Hockney’s loyal dachshund, Stanley, can be seen sitting on the back seat, referencing the artist’s love of his dogs. Stylised engine components are depicted on the bonnet, while expanses of green sweep across the body – a visual metaphor for the passing scenery, movement, and time. Hockney’s visual language melds the car’s interior and the outside world to create a new and unusual perspective on motoring.

Born in Bradford, England, in 1937, David Hockney has been one of the most flamboyant and influential protagonists on the international art scene since the early 1960s. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1962 and soon joined the exclusive circles of Swinging Sixties London. He established his style as his very own form of international Pop Art and achieved great popularity with it. His works – among them iconic images depicting swimming pools and Californian landscapes – illustrate his lifelong fascination with light, colour, and the relationship between perspective and movement. David Hockney’s Art Car was intended solely as an exhibition piece and has never been driven on the road or in a race.

The BMW Art Car World Tour charts an ambitious course, with stops at prestigious destinations such as Art Basel Hong Kong, the Le Mans Classic in France, Belgium’s Zoute Grand Prix, the Shanghai Motor Show in China, and Italy’s Concorso d’Eleganza, among others. Showcasing the collection of 20 iconic BMW Art Cars, the tour serves as a testament to the company’s deep-rooted commitment to global cultural engagement – spanning more than a hundred initiatives across contemporary art, music, film, and design. Follow the journey here.

BMW Art Car #14 by David Hockney
October 14-November 3
The Peninsula London,
1 Grosvenor Pl,
London SW1X 7HJ,
United Kingdom

The Peninsula London Classic Car Afternoon Tea is offered daily until November 18 from 1.00 – 6.30pm reservations can be made here.

Dedicated media slots on October 14 and 15 from 1.00 – 3.00pm can be requested here. Capacity is limited, first come first served.

Frieze London Dates
Wednesday, October 15: 11am - 7pm (invitation only)
Thursday, October 16: 11am – 1pm (Members and Invitation only preview) 1pm – 5pm General admission tickets
Friday, October 17: 11am - 7pm 
Saturday, October 18: 11am - 7pm
Sunday, October 19: 11am – 6pm

Media Accreditation

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

Istanbul/Munich. Contemporary Istanbul, Türkiye’s leading international art fair, will celebrate its 20th edition from 24–28 September 2025 at Tersane Istanbul. The 2025 edition reflects two decades of growth for the fair, which has become a vital meeting point for collectors, artists, and institutions from across the region and beyond. This year’s fair programme includes a curated selection of galleries from around the world and landmark institutional collaborations. As part of the BMW Art Car World Tour, the very first BMW Art Car, designed by Alexander Calder, and the latest addition to the collection by Julie Mehretu #20 will be exhibited on the ground.

Contemporary Istanbul takes its place on the global stage as part of the ever-expanding BMW Art Car World Tour, a journey that will span continents and continue well into 2026. Marking the 50th anniversary of this iconic series, the tour brings together a constellation of exhibitions across five continents, enriched by a vibrant array of events. With Istanbul now joining the ranks of world capitals and premier cultural gatherings, the city cements its status as a vital hub in the international art landscape. The exhibited Art Cars will be shown side by side for the first time in Türkiye at the BMW Lounge in the partner section of Contemporary Istanbul and reflect the breadth and diversity of the BMW Art Car Collection. A dedicated BMW Art Talk as part of the fair’s CIF Dialogues featuring Head of BMW Group Cultural Engagement Thomas Girst will dive deep into the history and individual anecdotes of the 20 rolling sculptures.

Alexander Calder’s BMW 3.0 CSL laid the foundation for the iconic series when French racing driver and art dealer Hervé Poulain, together with then BMW Head of Motorsport Jochen Neerpasch, asked his artist friend Calder to paint a car. The completely reimagined 3.0 CSL patterned in red, yellow, blue, and white went on to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1975 and became a crowd favorite. Alexander Calder (1898-1976) was an American sculptor and artist and is regarded as one of the most influential exponents of Classical Modernism. He began his career as an engineer before turning to art. His most famous works are his mobiles – light, free-moving sculptures that are set in motion by air currents or electric motors – and his static, often-monumental metal sculptures known as "stabiles".

The Ethiopian born, New York based abstract painter Julie Mehretu created the latest and 20th car in the collection from a BMW M Hybrid V8 in 2024 where it premiered at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and hit the racetrack at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Space, movement, and energy have always been central motifs in Mehretu's work. For her Art Car design she transformed a two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional representation, with which she succeeded in bringing dynamism into form. Mehretu used the color and form vocabulary of her monumental painting “Everywhen” (2021-2023) as a starting point for her design. Its abstract visual form results from digitally altered photographs, which are superimposed in several layers of dot grids, neon-colored veils, and the black markings characteristic of Mehretu's work.

The BMW Art Car World Tour charts an ambitious course, with stops at prestigious destinations such as Art Basel Hong Kong, Le Mans Classic in France, Belgium’s Zoute Grand Prix, the Shanghai Motor Show in China, and Italy’s Concorso d’Eleganza, among others. Showcasing the collection of 20 iconic BMW Art Cars, the tour serves as a testament to the company’s deep-rooted commitment to global cultural engagement—spanning more than a hundred initiatives across contemporary art, music, film, and design.

Contemporary Istanbul 2025 highlights and institutional collaborations
Contemporary Istanbul’s 20th fair edition also deepens its engagement with leading museums and art organisations worldwide. Special presentations will include contributions from the UBS Digital Art Museum (Hamburg), Sigg Art Foundation (Le Castellet), and others, underlining the fair’s commitment to international dialogue.

CI 20 focus: America
The fair’s curated Focus Section this year will spotlight the contemporary art scene in the United States, with a particular emphasis on New York. Titled Focus America, the programme will explore the country’s role in shaping global cultural narratives and foster new connections among artists, curators, and collectors. Institutional leaders from major US museums will take part in a series of panels, exhibitions, and networking events.

CIF Dialogues: “Dispersing Coordinates”
CIF’s annual conference, “Dialogues”, returns this year under the theme “Dispersing Coordinates: Istanbul and the Shifting Map of Art.” The programme will reflect on global cultural shifts and Istanbul’s evolving position in the art world. Confirmed speakers include Jennifer Stockman (Honorary President, Guggenheim Museum), and Anne Pasternak (Director, Brooklyn Museum).

For more information and press accreditation:
www.contemporaryistanbul.com

Contemporary Istanbul Dates
24 September: Preview
25 – 28 September: General Admission
BMW Lounge presence at Rixos Tersane Partner Section
BMW Art Talk at CIF Dialogues, 24 September at 3:30pm

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

Goodwood/Munich. The 2025 Goodwood Revival (12-14 September) will showcase five rolling sculptures of the legendary BMW Art Car series as part of the event’s Earls Court Motor Show. For the past 50 years, the BMW Art Car Collection has continued to evolve and features designs by some of the world’s most renowned artists, including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jeff Koons, and David Hockney.

Since 1975, the BMW Group has provided artists with a playground for their fascination with automobiles through the BMW Art Cars: art and design, technology and innovation, racing and engineering. The collection of 20 BMW Art Cars now forms the essence of the global cultural engagement with over a hundred initiatives in the fields of contemporary art, music, film and design. Since its invention almost 140 years ago, artists around the world have engaged with the automobile in both critical and euphoric ways.

The exhibition at Goodwood Revival is part of the ongoing BMW Art Car World Tour, which celebrates the 50th aniversary of the collection by showcasing the legendary BMW Art Cars across various art and automotive platforms worldwide. The following five cars will be making a stop at the Revival Event:

1976 I Frank Stella BMW 3.0 CSL 
Known for its participation in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the original BMW 3.0 CSL was reimagined by artist Frank Stella. As the second vehicle in the BMW Art Cars collection, Stella’s design was inspired by the technical basis of the car itself. The result was a striking composition of black and white lines, with the powerful 750 hp engine front and centre of the design.

1977 I Roy Lichtenstein BMW 320i Turbo 
Just one year later, pop artist Roy Lichtenstein brought his signature style to life by incorporating his recognisable “Ben Day dots” into the design of the BMW 320i Turbo. The original vehicle, which also competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, was driven by the founder of the art car collection Hervé Poulain and Marcel Mignot.

1982 I Ernst Fuchs BMW 635 CSi 
Number five in the collection, the BMW 635 CSi was designed by Austrian artist Ernst Fuchs in 1982. Otherwise known as the “Fire Fox on a Hare Hunt”, Fuchs’ design was the first in the collection to be based on a production car, and varied from his earlier pieces of artwork.

1995 I David Hockney BMW 850 CSi 
David Hockney designed the 14th car in the collection: the BMW 850 CSi. The result of an extended design project, Hockney aimed to reveal the car’s inner workings and spirit through his art. His detailed paintwork includes the outline of a driver on the door, while attentive viewers will note a stylised suction vent on the button - subtle touches which invite you to look closer at the design.

2010 I Jeff Koons BMW M3 GT2 
American artist Jeff Koons brought a dynamic palette of vibrant, contrasting colours to his BMW M3 GT2. The 17th BMW Art Car saw the return of Pop Art and the creation of a design which captures the essence of power and motion - conveying a sense of speed and energy even when the car is stationary.

The unique collection of cars will be on display across the Goodwood Revival weekend in Earls Court, as part of the collection's ongoing world tour.

Saturday tickets for the Goodwood Revival are now sold out, with limited Friday and Sunday tickets remaining at goodwood.com

The Goodwood Revival 
Friday 12 – Sunday 14 September 2025.
Tickets & Hospitality
Tickets can be purchased at goodwood.com or by calling the Ticket Office on +44 (0)1243 755055.

BMW Group’s global cultural engagement and updates on the Art Car World Tour can be followed on Instagram at @BMWGroupCulture.

Munich. For half a century, BMW Art Cars have provided a creative platform for renowned artists from across the globe to express their vision on an automobile. The BMW Art Cars by American artists Andy Warhol and Julie Mehretu will be exhibited at this year's Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. The display at the concours marks the beginning of the North America leg of the BMW Art Car World Tour which celebrates the iconic collection in its jubilee year around the globe from Vienna to Hong Kong and Shanghai, from Dubai to Marrakech and Milan. The two BMW Art Cars will travel on to The Bridge and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C. respectively.

Andy Warhol's BMW M1 Group 4 (#4, 1979)
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) is considered one of the most influential artists of the modern age and a major proponent of Pop Art. In just 28 minutes, Warhol covered the car – then the latest masterpiece by design legend Giorgio Giugiaro – in colours and textures that clearly reveal his artistic gestures, even today. Hervé Poulain, the founder of the BMW Art Car Collection, witnessed Warhol painting the car and compared it to a live dance performance. Andy Warhol’s Art Car was raced for the first and only time at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1979.

Julie Mehretu's BMW M Hybrid V8 (#20, 2024)
Mixed media, print, painting: Julie Mehretu’s works comment on social and political upheavals. Born in 1970 in Addis Ababa and now living in New York, Mehretu is one of the most successful artistic voices of her generation. She first presented her artistically designed BMW M Hybrid V8 to the public at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in May 2024. After its race deployment in Le Mans a month later, this year marks the next chapter of the project in cooperation with the BMW Group: the African Film and Media Arts Collective (AFMAC). With BMW Art Car #20 now returning to the artist's homeland for the first time, the presentation at Pebble Beach marks its North American premiere.

At the 74th Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance (17 August 2025), the signature event of Monterey Car Week, art buffs and motorsport fans alike will be treated to a rare display of these two spectacular examples from BMW’s storied collection.

This year’s event serves as the perfect venue to celebrate two American-made masterpieces, as 2025 marks the 50th anniversaries of the BMW Art Car collection and BMW officially doing business in the USA. The two ‘rolling sculptures’ will then continue their journey separately to The Bridge in Bridgehampton, New York, and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.

In 2016, Bob Rubin, Shamin Abas, and Jeffrey Einhorn founded The Bridge, one of the nation’s most exclusive annual automotive events, held by invitation only on the historic grounds of the original Bridgehampton Race Circuit. The event celebrates the site’s rich racing heritage, showcasing over 200 post-war sports and competition cars. This year, visitors can look forward to a special highlight on 13 September 2025: Julie Mehretu's BMW Art Car #20 will be on display alongside the McLaren Artura GT4 designed by American artist Mickalene Thomas. Inspired by the idea behind the BMW Art Car Collection, the Driven Artists Racing Team (DART Car) commissioned award-winning multidisciplinary artist Mickalene Thomas to design a custom wrap for their very first race car, the McLaren Artura GT4. The car made its official debut on February 18th at the Classic Car Club Manhattan in New York. The DART initiative was founded by entrepreneur Zoë Barry, art advisor Spring McManus, and professional racecar driver Aurora Straus. It aims to showcase the achievements of women in the traditionally male-dominated fields of art and motorsport.

As part of the presentation of BMW Art Car #20 by Julie Mehretu and Mickalene Thomas' custom-designed McLaren, an Art Talk with both artists, entrepreneur Zoë Barry and Thomas Girst, Global Head of BMW Group Cultural Engagement, will take place on 13 September at 4pm. The conversation, moderated by art advisor Spring McManus, explores the innovative fusion of contemporary art and motorsports.

Shortly afterwards, Andy Warhol's iconic BMW Art Car will be presented in Washington, D.C. The stop in the US capital will be kicked off with an exclusive opening ceremony at the Hirshhorn Museum, located prominently on the National Mall.

The BMW Art Car Collection.
The BMW Art Car initiative came from French racing driver and art dealer Hervé Poulain, who, together with then BMW Head of Motorsport Jochen Neerpasch, asked his artist friend Alexander Calder to paint a car. The result was a completely reimagined BMW 3.0 CSL, which went on to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1975 and became a crowd favorite. In the years that followed, art icons like Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Esther Mahlangu, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Jeff Koons, and Julie Mehretu have enriched the collection, each in their own individual style.

The BMW vehicles that have been turned into works of art using a wide variety of graphic and artistic techniques are as different as the artists themselves – from pure racing thoroughbreds to production vehicles and rare sports cars. The results are all vastly different. No two vehicles are alike. BMW Art Car artists are selected by an independent worldwide jury of museum directors and curators, and the artist always maintains complete creative freedom throughout the entire process.

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

Munich. The BMW Museum in Munich is using a special exhibition taking place as part of the international BMW Art Car World Tour to celebrate the 50-year anniversary of both the legendary BMW Art Car Collection and the iconic BMW 3 Series. The exhibition will open its doors to visitors from 17 June, hot on the heels of the Le Mans 24 Hours race weekend. Fittingly, it was at Le Mans in 1975 that the first BMW Art Car – created by Alexander Calder – staged its glittering premiere. The exhibition, which runs until 1 February 2026, will see the BMW Museum present a trio of Art Cars based on the BMW 3 Series: Sandro Chia’s BMW M3 GTR and the BMW M3 (Group A) cars designed by Michael Jagamara Nelson and Ken Done respectively.

The exhibition at the BMW Museum – the home of the BMW Art Cars when they are not on display at destinations around the globe – is one of the attractions of the ongoing BMW Art Car World Tour, the largest exhibition project yet in the 50-year history of the collection. The Tour has so far visited 12 markets on five continents, and will continue to showcase the legendary BMW Art Cars across numerous art and car platforms, and at institutes worldwide, over the coming year. The BMW Museum will use the special exhibition to provide insights into the artistic brilliance and history of the BMW Art Car Collection, as well as inviting visitors to explore the technical excellence of the 3 Series and the innovative power of the BMW brand.

50 years of driving pleasure: the BMW 3 Series 
Since it first hit the roads in 1975, the BMW 3 Series has served as a byword for driving pleasure and a cornerstone for the success of BMW. Across five decades, it has reimagined the concept of the sports sedan, set new standards for performance and put smiles on the faces of millions of drivers around the world. From the groundbreaking first generation to today’s innovative models, the 3 Series has been an enduring, style-defining feature of the automotive landscape.

50 years of “rolling sculptures”: the BMW Art Car Collection
Since 1975, renowned artists from countries the world over have gone to work creating BMW Art Cars. The idea was the brainchild of French racing driver and art lover Hervé Poulain, who teamed up with BMW’s then Head of Motorsport Jochen Neerpasch to invite friend and artist Alexander Calder to paint a design onto a car. The result was a BMW 3.0 CSL that competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1975, becoming a darling of the crowd – and marking the birth of the BMW Art Car Collection. Famous names including Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Esther Mahlangu, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer and Ólafur Elíasson have since added further BMW Art Cars bearing their own individual style to the collection. More recently, the American John Baldessari and Chinese multimedia artist Cao Fei used the BMW M6 GTLM and BMW M6 GT3 respectively as a canvas for their takes on the BMW Art Car concept in 2016 and 2017. They therefore joined Jeff Koons and Julie Mehretu in applying their creativity to dynamic racing cars in the last 15 years.

BMW Art Cars at the BMW Museum from 17 June
BMW M3 Group A by Ken Done (1989):
Australian artist Ken Done created a vibrant and richly coloured design that captures the energy and dynamism of motor racing. His work represents a homage to the speed and power of the BMW M3.

“It was a great honour to be asked to be part of this fabulous Art Car collection. I wanted to express the joy of speed and the brilliance of the machine itself.” Ken Done

BMW M3 Group A by Michael Jagamara Nelson (1989):
Michael Jagamara Nelson, also from Australia, brought the traditions of Aboriginal art to the bodywork of the BMW M3. His complex motifs using dot painting techniques tell Dreaming stories that are deeply rooted in the culture of his people.

“A car is a landscape as it would be seen from a plane – I have included water, the kangaroo and the opossum.” Michael Jagamara Nelson

BMW M3 GTR by Sandro Chia (1992):
Italian artist Sandro Chia transformed a BMW M3 GTR into a painting on wheels that depicts human figures and emotions in vivid colours. His work symbolises the connection between man and machine, and invites us to reflect on the role of the car in modern society.

“I have created both a picture and a world. Everything that is looked at closely turns into a face. A face is a focus, a focus of life and the world.” Sandro Chia

The 10th BMW Art Car, a BMW 730i designed by Spanish artist César Manrique in 1990, is also on show at the BMW Museum as part of its permanent exhibition.

For more information, please visit:
BMW Art Cars im BMW Museum
BMW Art Car World Tour

If you have any questions, please contact:
Lisa Meindl
BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs
Spokesperson BMW Museum und BMW Welt
Phone: +49-89-382-31668 
E-Mail: Lisa.Meindl@bmw.de

Ilya Baryshev
BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs
Spokesperson, BMW Art Car World Tour
Telefon: +49-151-601-544-36
E-Mail: Ilya.Baryshev@bmwgroup.com

Bratislava. Marking a decade of collaboration between BMW Slovakia and the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum, the BMW Art Car World Tour 2025 has arrived in Bratislava with a compelling exhibition. From May 27 to June 1, 2025, the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum will host "The Private Collection by BMW", offering a rare opportunity to explore the intersection of artistic vision and engineering excellence through three iconic BMW Art Cars.

BMW Art Cars on display in Bratislava:

• Frank Stella’s BMW 3.0 CSL (1976).
• Michael Jagamara Nelson’s BMW M3 Group A (1989).
• Matazo Kayama’s BMW 535i (1990).

The partnership between BMW Slovakia and the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum has brought numerous cultural and artistic highlights to the Slovak capital.

Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum is one of Europe’s most striking contemporary art venues. Situated on the banks of the Danube River, the museum’s architectural beauty and serene surroundings provide the perfect setting to showcase the Art Cars and their captivating stories.

The exhibition features works by talented students from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (VŠVU) in collaboration with the MINI brand and inspired by the MINI Aceman model, and young artists from the "Children and Architecture" project. These initiatives aim to inspire future generations to explore the intersections of art, design, and innovation.

The BMW Art Car World Tour: A Global Celebration

The Bratislava exhibition is part of the BMW Art Car World Tour 2025, the largest exhibition project in the history of the collection, spanning all five continents. Since the tour’s kick-off, events have been held in 12 different markets at an incredible pace, sharing the legacy of the Art Cars with audiences around the globe.

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

Dubai/ Munich. The 2025 edition of Art Dubai is set to take place at Madinat Jumeirah from 18 to 20 April, with VIP guests welcomed for preview days on 16 and 17 April. As a long-term supporter of the fair, BMW will showcase the iconic 4th BMW Art Car, painted by Andy Warhol in just 28 minutes in 1979, on the fairground. The display of Warhol’s BMW M1 at Art Dubai is part of the BMW Art Car World Tour, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the legendary BMW Art Car Collection this year.

Founded in 2007, Art Dubai has established itself as the most significant global art gathering in the Middle East, playing a pivotal role in the rapid growth of the region’s art scene and creative economy. Each year, the fair features around 120 contemporary, modern, and digital galleries from over 40 countries, showcasing a diverse range of artistic talent and positions. The gallery programme is complemented by artist commissions, an ambitious education initiative, and the most extensive talks and conference programming of any international art fair, including the renowned Global Art Forum and the annual Digital Summit. Art Dubai continues to champion galleries and artists from less-represented geographies, serving as a vital gateway for discovery, learning, and cultural exchange.

As part of the fair’s talk series, BMW will host the exclusive Art Talk “Driven by Art: Are Commissions and Co-creations the Future?” on 17th April at the Auditorium of Art Dubai. The international panalists Azu Nwagbogu (Founder and Director African Artists' Foundation and LagosPhoto Festival), Hans Ulrich Obrist (Artistic Director SERPENTINE) and Dr Stephanie Rosenthal (Director Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project) will explore the rise of co-creation as cultural phenomenon. Taking the iconic BMW Art Car Initiative as a point of departure, the panelists will reflect on decades of artistic collaborations they themselves initiated through their curatorial practice and institutions, moderated by Prof Dr Thomas Girst (Global Head of BMW Group Cultural Engagement).

The BMW Art Car World Tour and its stop in Dubai
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the BMW Art Car Collection – an unprecedented mix of technology, art, and design that began in 1975 when French racing driver Hervé Poulain invited artist Alexander Calder to paint a BMW 3.0 CSL. Since then, the project has brought together visionary artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Esther Mahlangu, Jeff Koons, and Julie Mehretu, each transforming a BMW vehicle into a “rolling sculpture“. To celebrate this milestone, BMW has launched a global BMW Art Car World Tour to showcase the collection at cultural institutions, museums and platforms on all five continents.

In 1979, Andy Warhol transformed the BMW M1 into a radical canvas - a car that blurred the lines between art, performance and design. The exhibition of Warhol's BMW Art Car at this year's edition of Art Dubai underlines BMW's ongoing support for the arts and its commitment to fostering artistic dialogue and cultural exchange in the region. As part of the BMW Art Car World Tour 2025, Dubai joins this historic celebration of the series on tour.

If you have any questions, please contact:

Ilya Baryshev
BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs
BMW Art Car World Tour
Email: Ilya.Baryshev@bmwgroup.com

Munich. "I wondered how I could make the Art Car a symbol and vocal archive for the immense artistic creativity of the African continent," says Julie Mehretu, describing her ambition for designing the 20th BMW Art Car of the iconic collection. The American abstract painter, born in Ethiopia in 1970, first presented her artistically designed BMW M Hybrid V8 to the public at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in May 2024. After its race deployment in Le Mans a month later, this year marks the next chapter of the project in cooperation with the BMW Group: the African Film and Media Arts Collective (AFMAC).

The idea for the pan-African artist network was developed by Julie Mehretu together with her longtime friend, Mehret Mandefro, an Emmy-nominated film producer—also born in Ethiopia and living in the USA—and co-founder of the Realness Institute for the training of African filmmakers. Under the guidance of a group of African and international artists, including French-Senegalese filmmaker and 2024 Berlinale winner Mati Diop, American poet Robin Coste Lewis, and Kenyan performance artist Jim Chuchu, workshops will be held in Lagos, Dakar, Tangier, Nairobi, and Cape Town for around 50 artists. AFMAC will connect with local host cultural institutions on site and workshop participants will be selected through open calls with the partners. The kickoff will take place from April 15–19 in Lagos with the cultural non-profit organization "Angels & Muse".

“BMW is working for the first time in the 50-year history of the BMW Art Car Collection with an artist to develop the idea far beyond the car as a pure art object. This collaboration is particularly close to my heart. It expands BMW’s long-term global commitment in the film sector with an outstanding initiative that stands for exchange, creativity, and cultural diversity—values that we, as a company, also embody,” says Ilka Horstmeier, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, Human Resources, and Real Estate.

Each workshop results in a new film production. Once completed, the films will form an anthology of contemporary African filmmaking, which will complement exhibitions of Mehretu’s 20th BMW Art Car. In 2026, the anthology will debut in a major exhibition dedicated to AFMAC along with the 20th Art Car at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town. The curator will be its Executive Director Koyo Kouoh, the designated curator of the 2026 Venice Biennale. The BMW Group has been a partner of the museum for many years, contributing its extensive network of cultural professionals and charitable institutions in Africa to establish AFMAC on a long-term and sustainable basis.

International collaboration and access to African film history
Social engagement and engaging with peers in collectives have always shaped Mehretu's work. In 2004, she founded the artist residency Denniston Hill in North New York with artist Paul Pfeiffer and architectural historian Lawrence Chua. Meant as a place for exchange, reflection, and retreat, artists of various disciplines and backgrounds further develop their practice there. Workshop methods conceived at Denniston Hill form the foundation for AFMAC’s workshops, where artists from various African countries and the global diaspora come together to engage with questions of cultural, political, and historical identity. The forms of experimentation that a translocal collective enables, how cultural and political heritage can be negotiated, and the role different media play in the attribution of identity forms are examined.

Using archival material of African film and media works, participants are given the opportunity to develop their own creative approaches and create new forms of media art. Accordingly, a key component of the workshops is the screening of hard-to-access African films to expand historical and cultural perspectives. The goal is to create sustainable infrastructures that last beyond the workshops and strengthen the artistic community in Africa. A central point of approach is the provision of an online film archive that African artists can continuously work with in the future.

Artist talks and public presentations of AFMAC will also take place outside of Africa in 2025 and 2026. An event calendar and further detailed information, including photo and film material, are available at www.afmac.institute, a digital platform documenting the project and archive for African cinema, created by New York-based creative agency Pacific.

African Film and Media Arts Collective – stations
April 15–19, 2025: Lagos, Nigeria, in partnership with Angels & Muse 
Lead artist: Coco Fusco

June 2–6, 2025: Dakar, Senegal, in partnership with Fanta Sy and Raw Material Company 
Lead artist: Mati Diop

July 2025: Tangier, Morocco, in partnership with Cinematheque de Tanger
Lead artist: Zeresenay Berhane Mehari

October 2025: Nairobi, Kenya, community partner to be determined 
Lead artists: Jim Chuchu and Wanuri Kahiu

December 2025: Cape Town, South Africa, in partnership with Realness Institute 
Lead artist: The Otolith Group

Biographies of the founders and lead artists
Julie Mehretu is a world-renowned American artist, born in Addis Ababa in 1970. Mehretu’s practice in painting, drawing and printmaking engage the viewer in a dynamic visual articulation of contemporary experience. Notable accolades include The MacArthur Award, The US Department of State Medal of Arts Award, and in 2025, was awarded the rank of Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. Her work has been exhibited widely at museums, biennials and galleries around the globe. Mehretu is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, The National Academy of Design and the National Academy of Sciences in Ethiopia. She sits on the board of the Whitney Museum of American Art, is a trustee and alumna of the American Academy in Berlin, a Global Council Member at Zeitz MOCAA, and is co-founder and board member of Denniston Hill. Mehretu lives and works in New York City.

Mehret Mandefro is an Emmy-nominated producer, writer, and serial entrepreneur born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Her body of work explores hidden truths and spans documentary and fiction, film and television, art and science. She co-founded the multi-media production company Truth Aid Media and founded the research enterprise Truth Aid Impact, A51 Pictures in Ethiopia as well as the Realness Institute in South Africa. She was formerly Executive Producer of Kana Television in Ethiopia and is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science.

Jim Chuchu is a singer, songwriter, music producer, director, photographer, and visual artist. He helped establish the Nest Collective, a multidisciplinary art space and artists’ collective in Nairobi. His first short film “Homecoming” was featured at various film festivals from Durban to Locarno. Chuchu’s photography series “Pagans” was highlighted at Dak’Art 2014, the 11th edition of Africa’s longest running biennial of contemporary art.

Robin Coste Lewis born in 1964 in Compton, California is the author of “Voyage of the Sable Venus” (2015), the winner of National Book Award for Poetry. The former poet laureate of Los Angeles, Lewis holds a PhD in Poetry and Visual Studies from the University of Southern California, an MFA in poetry from New York University, an MTS in Sanskrit and comparative religious literature from the Divinity School at Harvard University, and a BA from Hampshire College in post-colonial literature and creative writing. Her work has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Transition, and The Massachusetts Review. Lewis has taught at Hampshire College, Hunter College, Wheaton College, and the NYU Low-Residency MFA in Paris. She is currently writer in residence at the University of Southern California.

Mati Diop, is a French-Senegalese filmmaker born in Paris in 1982. With her first feature film “Atlantics“ (2019), winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival followed by “Dahomey“ (2024) awarded by The Golden Bear of Berlinale, (both short listed at the Oscars), she has established herself as one of the leading figures of international auteur cinema and a new wave in African and diasporic cinema.

Coco Fusco born in 1960 in New York City is a video and performance artist. With her multidisciplinary practice, Fusco explores the ways that intercultural dynamics affect the construction of the self and ideas about cultural otherness. Her work is in the collections of major museums worldwide and she received numerous awards.

Wanuri Kahiu is an award-winning filmmaker, speaker, and science fiction writer. Her film “Rafiki“ was the first Kenyan film to screen at Cannes, earning global recognition. Named one of TIME’s 100 Next in 2019, she is a cultural leader for the World Economic Forum and an advocate for freedom of expression. Through AFROBUBBLEGUM, Kahiu champions fun, fierce and frivolous African art. She directed “Washington Black” for Hulu/20th Century Fox, Netflix’s “Look Both Ways”, and is set to direct Disney’s “Once on This Island”.

Zeresenay Berhane Mehari, born 1974, is an Ethiopian filmmaker and co-founder of A51 Pictures. He is notable as the director of critically acclaimed films “Difret” (Sundance and Berlinale Panorama Audience Award) and “Sweetness in the Belly”. Apart from cinema, he was the co-founder and Head of Original Content for Kana Television, the largest free-to-air, private satellite entertainment TV channel in Ethiopia.

The Otolith Group was founded in London in 2002 by curators and artists Anjalika Sagar, born 1968, and Kodwo Eshun, born 1967 both in London. Their research-based work spans across moving image, audio, performance and installations and engages with post-human discourses building intergenerational and cross-cultural platforms.

Vienna. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the BMW Art Car Collection, the BMW Art Car World Tour is taking place on all five continents with numerous accompanying activities and kicks off in Europe and Asia. The official start of the world tour was celebrated yesterday as part of the “(R) EVOLUTION OF ART” event at the BMW Group Niederlassung Wien. A total of five BMW Art Cars will be shown in Vienna at the Museum of Applied Arts and at the SPARK Art Fair from March 20-23: the cars by Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, David Hockney and Jeff Koons. The latest and 20th BMW Art Car – the BMW M Hybrid V8 by renowned American painter Julie Mehretu – will embark on an Asian tour and be displayed at Art Basel in Hong Kong on March 28-30.

“We are honored to be able to host the start of the BMW Art Car World Tour in Vienna,” says Dr. Josef Reiter, Managing Director of BMW Group Niederlassung Wien. “As the BMW Group in Austria, we see it as our responsibility to promote art and culture. The (R) EVOLUTION OF ART event is part of our commitment to provide creative impulses and inspire dialogue between artists, their works of art and audiences. We believe that innovation and creativity are inextricably linked — just as in the development of our cars. Art appeals to emotions — just like a BMW. The moment in which a vehicle triggers enthusiasm, wonder or wonder is comparable to experiencing an impressive work of art. Designers and engineers are working to create not only functionality, but also an emotional bond — whether through iconic shapes, an unmistakable driving experience or the combination of technology and aesthetics,” says Reiter.

Design accelerates change: The BMW Vision Neue Klasse X and BMW Vision Neue Klasse together in Vienna for the first time.
As part of the event, an insight into the Neue Klasse vision vehicles was also given. With the Neue Klasse, the BMW Group is making the mobility of the future a reality as early as this year. Vehicle dynamics, drive, battery technology, operating concept, digitization: Each of these aspects has been significantly further developed and, as with design, has sometimes skipped over a generation.

With the BMW Vision Neue Klasse, the BMW Group is giving a glimpse of what the next generation of vehicles from the core BMW brand will look like. The vision vehicle shows the BMW brand's new design language, which will be reflected in many other models from the brand. The new design language is clear, elegant and timeless. The new, all-electric vehicle architecture offers new interior design options.

In the BMW Vision Neue Klasse X, the aesthetics, technology and philosophy of the Neue Klasse are transferred to the sports activity vehicle sector. The vision vehicle offers a glimpse of the BMW iX3, which will go into series production at the Debrecen plant (Hungary) in 2025.

Born from passion: a brief history of the BMW Art Car Collection.
On 14 June 1975, the BMW 3.0 CSL designed by American sculptor Alexander Calder took to the track at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The project was initially intended as a one-time collaboration between the artist and BMW. The audience cheered for the colourful racing car and children rejoiced. BMW decided this had to continue! It all began with the passion for art and motorsport of French auctioneer and racing driver Hervé Poulain. In 1975, Poulain found a visionary ally in Jochen Neerpasch, founder and Head of BMW Motorsport, for his plan to enter a BMW designed by an artist in the legendary Le Mans endurance race. Even though the first BMW Art Car retired from the race after seven hours, it became a true crowd favourite, laying the foundations for the collection.

The BMW Group's Cultural Engagement.
With over 100 projects worldwide, the BMW Group's international cultural funding has been an essential part of corporate communication for almost 50 years. The BMW Group's long-term commitment focuses on contemporary art, music and film, and design.

In addition to its own formats, such as the BMW Art Cars, and the “Opera for All” concerts, the company supports leading museums and art fairs as well as orchestras and opera houses around the world. BMW Group's commitment to culture is always based on mutual curiosity and appreciation. Despite all its cultural commitments, the company takes absolute freedom of creative potential for granted — because it guarantees groundbreaking works in art just as much as it is for innovations in a commercial enterprise. The BMW Group in Austria is involved in various cultural projects in Austria and has maintained a long-standing partnership with the Albertina Art Museum. In the area of contemporary art, BMW in Austria accompanies the music festival in Steyr and the Lido Sounds in Linz.

Munich. Calder, Lichtenstein, Warhol, Holzer, Hockney, Koons, Rauschenberg, Mahlangu, Eliasson, Baldessari, Cao Fei, Mehretu. For the past 50 years, the BMW Art Car series has provided artists fascinated by automobiles with a perfect playground for art and design, technology and innovation, motorsport and engineering. The collection of 20 BMW Art Cars embodies the essence of global cultural engagement with over one hundred initiatives across contemporary art, music and film, as well as design. The "rolling sculptures" – from Alexander Calder’s first-ever Art Car to Julie Mehretu’s latest – offer a cross-section of art history over the past five decades: minimalism, pop art, magical realism, abstraction, conceptual art and digital art are all represented.

“I love that car. It has turned out better than the artwork.”
Andy Warhol, BMW Art Car #4, 1979

The artists are selected by international juries of museum directors. In close collaboration with the BMW Group’s engineering and design teams, they freely develop their concepts and inspire everyone involved. To mark the 50th anniversary, the BMW Art Car World Tour features an exhibition programme spanning all five continents and including numerous accompanying events.

“The car should not only race in a physical way but also in the heart.”
Cao Fei, BMW Art Car #18, 2016

An anniversary around the world.

"The BMW Art Car Collection celebrates 50 years of artistic freedom and visionary design. The 20 vehicles have become international icons, telling stories of society, technology and performance. Our commitment to art and culture is long-term. We are continuously developing the collection and bringing art and automotive culture together in a unique way," says Ilka Horstmeier, Board Member for Human Resources and Real Estate at BMW Group.

The BMW Art Car World Tour kicks off in Europe and Asia. On 20-21 March, the BMW Art Cars created by Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, David Hockney and Jeff Koons will be on display at the Museum of Applied Arts and the SPARK Art Fair in Vienna for the BMW Group Niederlassung Wien event “(R)Evolution of Art”. The latest and 20th BMW Art Car – the BMW M Hybrid V8 by renowned American painter Julie Mehretu – will embark on an Asian tour and be displayed at Art Basel in Hong Kong on 28-30 March.

Mehretu is developing her Art Car project far beyond the vehicle as an object and will host workshops for young film and media artists across five African countries in 2025, together with film producer Mehret Mandefro and the BMW Group. The results of the African Film and Media Arts Collective (AFMAC) will be presented in 2026 alongside Mehretu's Art Car in an exhibition at the Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, curated by its Executive Director, Koyo Kouoh, the designated curator of the Venice Biennale 2026.

“The whole BMW Art Car project is about invention, about imagination, about pushing limits of what can be possible.”
Julie Mehretu, BMW Art Car #20, 2024

Important museums and platforms for classic automobiles are also celebrating the milestone anniversary of the BMW Art Cars. The 13th Art Car by Sandro Chia will be showcased at the classic car festival Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este at Lake Como in May. In July and August, the Louwman Museum in The Hague will present eight BMW Art Cars in a special exhibition.

“I also thought it would be nice if women could participate other than standing around in bikinis.”
Jenny Holzer, BMW Art Car #15, 1999

The BMW Museum, the home of the BMW Art Cars when they are not travelling the world, is also honouring the collection by combining two anniversaries in a special exhibition. The BMW 3 Series is also celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2025, and starting 16 June, the museum will showcase a historical overview of all BMW 3 Series models as well as the BMW M3 Art Cars by Sandro Chia, Michael Jagamara Nelson, and Ken Done.                     

“I think mobile museums would be a good idea. This car is the fulfilment of my dream. I would like to do ten more.”
Robert Rauschenberg, BMW Art Car #6, 1986

New Art Car book, new Art Car model, new Art Car fashion collection.

In addition to the exhibition programme, BMW is releasing various new art and lifestyle products in celebration of the anniversary. The 1:18-scale miniature of the 20th Art Car by Julie Mehretu is available for purchase across BMW Lifestyle Shops, with a 1:43 version to follow later in the year. Together with publisher Hatje Cantz, BMW is presenting the third edition of the "BMW Art Cars" catalogue. Interviews with the founders of the collection and essays on each of the 20 Art Cars highlight the art historical relevance and diversity of the works. The cover design of the new edition is by Julie Mehretu. Following the popular Alexander Calder and Roy Lichtenstein fashion collections, the third collaboration with Puma based on the BMW Art Cars will be announced later this year.

“So you can say, the BMW Art Car is definitely a typical Baldessari and the fastest artwork I ever created!”
John Baldessari, BMW Art Car #19, 2016

Born from passion: a brief history of the BMW Art Car Collection.

On 14 June 1975, the BMW 3.0 CSL designed by American sculptor Alexander Calder took to the track at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The project was initially intended as a one-time collaboration between the artist and BMW. The audience cheered for the colourful racing car and children rejoiced. BMW decided this had to continue! It all began with the passion for art and motorsport of French auctioneer and racing driver Hervé Poulain. In 1975, Poulain found a visionary ally in Jochen Neerpasch, founder and Head of BMW Motorsport, for his plan to enter a BMW designed by an artist in the legendary Le Mans endurance race. Even though the first BMW Art Car retired from the race after seven hours, it became a true crowd favourite, laying the foundations for the collection.

“Hervé, win! But drive carefully!”
Alexander Calder, BMW Art Car #1, 1975

In close collaboration with legendary New York gallerist Leo Castelli, BMW Art Cars by American artists such as Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol followed – and all were raced by Hervé Poulain and the BMW team at Le Mans. From 1982 to 1992, the BMW Art Car Collection opened up to the world, with artists transforming various standard production models: Ernst Fuchs, Robert Rauschenberg, Michael Jagamara Nelson, Ken Done, Matazo Kayama, César Manrique, A. R. Penck, Esther Mahlangu, Sandro Chia and David Hockney. In 1999, BMW returned to motorsport with the BMW V12 LMR prototype and American conceptual artist Jenny Holzer. Eight years later, Olafur Eliasson designed "Your mobile expectations: BMW H₂R Project" based on a record-breaking hydrogen race car. Jeff Koons, John Baldessari, Cao Fei, and Julie Mehretu have added dynamic race cars over the past 15 years. Since its invention nearly 140 years ago, artists worldwide have engaged with the automobile both critically and enthusiastically. And over the last 50 years, the BMW Art Car series has contributed significantly to this inspiring dialogue.

“These race cars are like life, they are bursting with power and have enormous energy. My ideas are meant to merge with this power – it's all about fully embracing it.”
Jeff Koons, BMW Art Car #17, 2010

BMW Art Car World Tour 2025 (selection)

until 16 April 2025: Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa
BMW Art Car #12 Esther Mahlangu

20-21 March 2025: SPARK Art Fair and MAK Museum Vienna, Austria
Event “(R)Evolution of Art” of the BMW Niederlassung Wien
BMW Art Cars #3 Roy Lichtenstein, #4 Andy Warhol, #6 Robert Rauschenberg, #14 David Hockney, #16 Jeff Koons

28-30 March 2025: Art Basel in Hong Kong
BMW Art Car #20 Julie Mehretu

23 April-2 May 2025: Shanghai Auto Show, China
BMW Art Car #20 Julie Mehretu

18-20 April 2025: Art Dubai, United Arab Emirates
BMW Art Car # TBA

May 2025: 50 Years of BMW Switzerland, Zurich, Switzerland
BMW Art Cars #5 Ernst Fuchs, #8 Ken Done, #11 A. R. Penck, #14 David Hockney, #15 Jenny Holzer, #19 John Baldessari

9-11 May 2025: Taipei Dangdai, Taiwan
BMW Art Car # TBA

27 May–1 June 2025: Bratislava, Slovakia
BMW Art Cars #2 Frank Stella, #7 Michael Jagamara Nelson, #9 Matazo Kayama

15-18 May 2025: Market Art Fair, Stockholm, Sweden
BMW Art Cars #1 Alexander Calder, #3 Roy Lichtenstein, #4 Andy Warhol, #17 Jeff Koons

23-25 May 2025: Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este, Lake Como, Italy
BMW Art Car #13 Sandro Chia

16 June 2025-1 January 2026: BMW Museum, Munich
BMW Art Cars #7 Michael Jagamara Nelson, #8 Ken Done, #13 Sandro Chia

16 June 2025-31 August 2025: BMW Welt, Munich
BMW Art Cars #15 Jenny Holzer, #20 Julie Mehretu

27-29 June 2025: The Aurora, Båstad, Sweden
BMW Art Cars #1 Alexander Calder, #3 Roy Lichtenstein, #4 Andy Warhol, #17 Jeff Koons

3 July-31August, 2025: Louwman Museum, The Hague, Netherlands
BMW Art Cars #1 Alexander Calder, #2 Frank Stella, #3 Roy Lichtenstein, #4 Andy Warhol, #10 César Manrique, #12 Esther Mahlangu, #14 David Hockney, #17 Jeff Koons

24-28 September 2025: Contemporary Istanbul, Turkey
BMW Art Cars #1 Alexander Calder, #20 Julie Mehretu

The Art Car World Tour schedule is still evolving and will continue through most of 2026. Further stops and venues are planned, including Australia, Belgium (Brussels, Zoute), China (Macau), Germany (Berlin, Munich, Düsseldorf), Kazakhstan, Latin America, Morocco (Marrakech), South Africa, Spain, Switzerland (Basel) and USA.

BMW Art Cars

1. Alexander Calder / BMW 3.0 CSL / 1975
2. Frank Stella / BMW 3.0 CSL / 1976
3. Roy Lichtenstein / BMW 320 Group 5 / 1977
4. Andy Warhol / BMW M1 Group 4 / 1979
5. Ernst Fuchs / BMW 635 CSi / 1982
6. Robert Rauschenberg / BMW 635 CSi / 1986
7. Michael Jagamara Nelson / BMW M3 Group A / 1989
8. Ken Done / BMW M3 Group A / 1989
9. Matazo Kayama / BMW 535i / 1990
10. César Manrique / BMW 730i / 1990
11. A.R. Penck / BMW Z1 / 1991
12. Esther Mahlangu / BMW 525i / 1991
13. Sandro Chia / BMW M3 GTR / 1992
14. David Hockney / BMW 850 CSi / 1995
15. Jenny Holzer / BMW V12 LMR / 1999
16. Olafur Eliasson / BMW H₂R / 2007
17. Jeff Koons / BMW M3 GT2 / 2010
18. Cao Fei / BMW M6 GT3 / 2016
19. John Baldessari / BMW M6 GTLM / 2016
20. Julie Mehretu / BMW M Hybrid V8 / 2024

Further information on the BMW Art Car Collection can be found here.

For media inquiries, please contact:

Ilya Baryshev
BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs
BMW Art Car World Tour
Phone: +49 151 601 544 36
Email: Ilya.Baryshev@bmwgroup.com  

Munich/Istanbul. BMW, distributed by Borusan Otomotiv in Türkiye, is exhibiting the BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA at the 19^th edition of Contemporary Istanbul, open for General Admission between October 24-27^th, 2024, with a Preview Day on October 23^rd. The installation, which had its world premiere at the Frieze Los Angeles art fair, will be on view for art enthusiasts at Tersane Istanbul.

The BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA combines the innovative color-changing technology developed by BMW with the traditional art of renowned South African artist Esther Mahlangu. The first woman and the first African artist to participate in the BMW Art Car project, Mahlangu’s signature colors and patterns are generated in constantly changing compositions on the surface of the vehicle through sections of attached film that can be electronically animated. This technology transforms the BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA from just a vehicle into a dynamic work of art.

The BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA uses the BMW Group's latest color-changing technology. The E Ink film technology, which is sensitive to electrical charges, enables the surface of the vehicle to display a variety of ever-changing colors. This technology expands Mahlangu's art with a dynamic dimension, offering viewers a continuously evolving visual experience. Inspired by Mahlangu during the idea phase, Dr. Stella Clarke, Research Engineer Open Innovations at the BMW Group and the implementer of E Ink technology, brought the concept of a color-changing car to life and was working with the artist on the project.

This visual experience is accompanied by a sound performance composed by Renzo Vitale, BMW Group's Creative Director for Sound. Vitale incorporates sounds from Mahlangu’s homeland culture and the sounds from feather brushes she uses for painting to create a soundscape in harmony with the visuality of the work. Thus, the BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA stands out as an installation that appeals to both the visual and auditory senses.

This project once again demonstrates the importance that BMW places on art and technology. The BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA offers a unique experience that will appeal to both art lovers and technology enthusiasts alike.

Borusan Otomotiv CEO Hakan Tiftik stated that BMW, distributed by Borusan Otomotiv in Türkiye, has been a long-standing supporter of Contemporary Istanbul, one of the leading contemporary art events in the country. Tiftik said, “Borusan Group, the parent company of Borusan Otomotiv, has been a prominent follower and supporter of cultural and artistic events since its foundation. The owner of Borusan Contemporary Art Collection, one of the foremost collections in Türkiye, Borusan Group continues its activities in the field of contemporary art under the roof of “Borusan Contemporary” at the Perili Köşk building, the headquarters of Borusan Holding. We are excited to participate in this year’s Contemporary Istanbul with the BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA, which reflects the BMW brand’s commitment to supporting numerous events across various art disciplines. Featuring Esther Mahlangu’s original art, the BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA, showcases one of the most advanced color-changing technologies to automotive and art enthusiasts. We are also pleased to welcome the implementer of this technology, Dr. Stella Clarke, who worked with Mahlangu on the project, in Istanbul.” 

"The Electric AI Canvas" was the highlight of last year’s fair
Bringing together world-renowned artists and original works with art enthusiasts at Contemporary Istanbul, BMW Türkiye showcased the all-electric new BMW i5 model with the "The Electric AI Canvas" installation last year. Inspired by the new BMW i5, "The Electric AI Canvas" was designed with custom artificial intelligence generated animations, created using AI models trained with a dataset of works from renowned contemporary artists. Esther Mahlangu was among the artists involved in transforming the new BMW i5 into a work of art. 

About Esther Mahlangu
Esther Mahlangu is a highly regarded artist known for reinterpreting traditional South African Ndebele art and culture in modern forms. In 1991, she became the first woman and the first African artist to participate in the BMW Art Car Project, designing the BMW 525i. Mahlangu's vibrant and geometric patterns are combined with innovative color-changing technology in the BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA, creating a work of contemporary art that will be remembered for years to come.

Midrand. Following the successful run of “Then I Knew I Was Good at Painting: Esther Mahlangu, A Retrospective” at the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town, Dr Esther Mahlangu’s major retrospective celebrating her life’s work will be moving to the Wits Art Museum (WAM) in Johannesburg in November 2024.

The exhibition features over 100 artworks loaned from international collections, including her BMW Art Car, painted mannequins, a TV, and a series of prints created by her in collaboration with Nelson Mandela. Through the presentation of archival material from her illustrious career spanning fifty decades, the retrospective charts her meteoric rise from humble beginnings to becoming an art world colossus and one of the most celebrated artists of our time.

The curator Nontobeko Ntombela explains that, “this retrospective offers a remarkable opportunity to experience Esther Mahlangu's artistic journey. Her work has had a profound impact on South African modern and contemporary art, and this exhibition is a testament of her incredible contribution.”

The foundations for Mahlangu’s artistic journey were laid by her grandmother and mother, who taught her the cultural practice of Ndebele wall painting and beadwork from the age of ten. Mahlangu worked in the communal cultural tradition of the Southern Ndebele community in decorating one’s home, at a time when the land was contested. Not only did the wall murals identify the

Southern Ndebele community, but they also signalled resistance to white oppression laying claim to this contested land. Mahlangu’s story of perseverance and passion is encapsulated in the exhibition’s title, inspired by her realisation: “Then I knew I was good at painting.” 

In 1989, Mahlangu gained international recognition when she was invited to participate in the Magiciens de la Terre exhibition in Paris. Mahlangu was invited to travel to Paris to paint a replica of her home which generated much media and other international exposure. In 1991, she became the first African and the first woman to paint a BMW Art Car, joining the ranks of art legends like Andy Warhol, David Hockney and Roy Lichtenstein.

Mahlangu is celebrated for her unique visual language, which has drawn inspiration from the Ndebele artistic practice. She has adapted, extended and transported these practices to develop her body of work. Described variously as a social justice activist, a Warholian entrepreneur, and a cultural ambassador, Mahlangu’s work is complex and layered, defying any simple interpretive narrative or Western art historical framework. One thing art critics unanimously agree on, however, is her virtuosic mastery of colour and form and her extraordinary ability to successfully navigate the ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’ worlds.

“Mahlangu is a living symbol of triumph against adversity. She is one of the first among South African artists, as well as among women artists, to become a global icon of the art world. Her affable demeanour and her ability to inspire creativity and delight in so many around the world, has earned her reputation as a matriarch and mentor of the contemporary art world,” says exhibition curator Nontobeko Ntombela. “Her approach to art has inspired generations of younger artists and reaffirms the call for Africa to take its rightful place at centre stage in the story of art.”

In the lead up to the exhibition in Johannesburg, Mahlangu is set to be honoured in London by the Serpentine Gallery with the unveiling a large 9m x 5m mural as the opening event for Frieze London.

The artwork is titled ‘Umuntu ngumuntu ngabuntu’ and directly translates from Ndebele to ‘I am because you are’, emphasing a connectedness that exists between humans, communities and other living species. It will be presented in the garden at Serpentine North and be on view from 4 October 2024.

This is her first public mural in the UK, painted over sixteen wooden panels. The work depicts traditional Ndebele shapes and patterns outlined with a black border, having learned the art of Ndebele design from her mother and grandmother which is tradition amongst her nation.

The Melrose Gallery Director – Craig Mark – echoed Ntombela’s sentiments, adding that, “very few South African artists have had the opportunity to present a retrospective like this one, and we hope to be able to take it even further with the potential of a global showing after the run at WAM which will hopefully lead to opportunities for other South African artists to be given access to these museum spaces which they have so long been denied.”

“The retrospective at WAM will open to the public on the 20th of November 2024, made possible thanks to the partnership and support provided by the National Arts Council and the BMW Group, without whom this retrospective wouldn’t have been possible,” says Mark.

The WAM showing provides an opportunity for audiences from Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Tshwane and outlying areas to experience the iconic works of living art legend and national treasure Esther Mahlangu. Mahlangu lives in Mpumalanga, but she has spent a considerable amount of time in Tshwane and Johannesburg; the exhibition is an opportunity for audiences from this region to experience and celebrate this important milestone with her. “Wits Art Museum is honoured to host this retrospective, allowing visitors to experience the extraordinary scope and breadth of vision present in Mahlangu’s work,” said WAM spokesperson Julia Charlton, Senior Curator.

Accompanying the artworks, Mahlangu’s BMW 525i Art Car makes its historic return to Gauteng for the first time in over 30 years. It is one of the highlights of the exhibition. Other highlights include a meticulously curated timeline of Esther Mahlangu’s practice and some of her earliest canvas works. 

“The BMW Group's commitment to this exhibition is a testament to our respect and admiration for Dr Esther Mahlangu's pioneering spirit and remarkable contribution to the world of art. This exhibition not only celebrates the incredible journey and legacy of Mam’ Esther but also symbolises a cherished collaboration that dates back over three decades. We are especially excited about the return of the BMW Art Car to Gauteng – a significant symbol of our shared history and appreciation for art that transcends boundaries”, says Peter van Binsbergen, CEO of BMW Group South Africa.

The museum is open from Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm and admission is free.

If you have any questions, please contact:

BMW Group South Africa

Angela Konert

Head of Business Communications

Phone: +27 71 666 2472

Email: Angela.Konert@bmw.co.za

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

The Melrose Gallery (through Alkemi Collective)

Shaun Demmer

Head of Client Service – Alkemi Collective

Phone: +27 82 776 9006

Email: shaun@alkemi.global

WAM

Angelique Bougaard

Education Curator – WAM

Angelique.Bougaard@wits.ac.za

ENDS

Editor’s Notes

About Dr Esther Mahlangu 

Dr Esther Nostokana Nagiyana Nikwambi Mahlangu is a celebrated South African contemporary artist known for her innovative work that pushes boundaries beyond the traditional mural. Widely recognized as one of the most influential artists across generations, Mahlangu began her artistic journey at the age of ten under the guidance of her grandmother and mother, learning the traditional techniques of isiNdebele mural painting. Her contemporary works which span a wide variety of non-traditional surfaces, found objects and automobiles, build upon this rich tradition.

Mahlangu’s participation in the exhibition Magiciens de la Terre (1989) in Paris, shot her to fame, marking the launch of her transition from a communal practice into her own agency as a contemporary artist. Shortly thereafter, in 1991, she became the first woman artist and African to paint a BMW Art Car. Mahlangu has exhibited in over 20 countries, sometimes with multiple solo shows in at least seventeen different cities.

She has painted murals across eight different countries and participated in residency programs with institutions like Project Row Houses (2005), L’Associazione Culturale Colonos (2009) & Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (2014). Some of her more significant engagements include Documenta IX (1992), the 5th Biennale of Contemporary Art (2000), the 1st Malindi Biennale (2006), and the 3rd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2009). Mahlangu's collaborations with BMW Group span decades, including the 1991 BMW 525i Art Car, the Electric AI Canvas at Art Basel 2023 (which featured AI-generated animations based on her designs projected onto a BMW i5), and the 2024 BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA, a one-of-a-kind vehicle combining colour-change technology developed by BMW. Esther Mahlangu has also worked on projects with fashion brands like Comme des Garçons (1991), shoe companies Melissa (2009) and EYTYS (2015). In 2016, she created the Belvedere (RED) bottle design, which helped fund a campaign against HIV/AIDS. Mahlangu's works are represented in over 27 public institutions’ collections, and she has been collected by private individuals worldwide. She continues her artistic career to this day. Esther Mahlangu is the recipient of numerous honorary doctorates for her contribution to art.

www.esthermahlangu.com

www.facebook.com/esthermahlanguart

www.instagram.com/esthermahlanguart

About Nontobeko Ntombela (The Exhibition Curator) 

Nontobeko Ntombela is a lecturer in the Department of Curatorial, Public, and Visual Cultures at the Wits School of Arts in Johannesburg. She holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Cape Town. Her research focuses on Modern and Contemporary South African art, with a particular interest in Black women artists. Ntombela began her career as a curator in 2002 and has worked at various institutions, including the BAT Centre, Durban University Art Gallery, and the Johannesburg Art Gallery, where she curated numerous exhibitions. After a decade of curatorial work, Ntombela took up an academic position at Wits, shifting her curatorial practice to centre more archival and research-driven historical projects. Some of her most recent notable curatorial projects include: “Then I Knew I Was Good at Painting: Esther Mahlangu, A Retrospective” (2024) exhibition at Iziko South African National Galleries in Cape Town and Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg, "When Rain Clouds Gather: South African Black Women Artists 1940–2000" (2022-2023) at the Norval Foundation in Cape Town, and "The Burden of Memory" (2019) at multiple venues in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

About The Melrose Gallery 

 The Melrose Gallery is a leading Pan African Contemporary gallery located in Johannesburg, South Africa. The gallery represents established and emerging artists whose voices speak to issues of significance to the Continent of Africa on a global basis. We are passionate about ensuring that the elders who have made a valuable contribution to African Contemporary Art are recognised and continue to be heard. These inspiring stalwarts provide a stable foundation to an exciting young guard of artists who are swiftly emerging from the African Continent and Diaspora to establish themselves globally. We run a curated programme of exhibitions, participate in respected art fairs, support many of our artists in their participation at Biennales and conceptualize and implement significant non-commercial exhibitions in association with leading museums.

www.themelrosegallery.com

www.instagram.com/themelrosegallerysa

www.facebook.com/themelrosegallery

craig@themelrosegallery.com

About WAM 

Located in the heart of Braamfontein, Johannesburg, Wits Art Museum is a university art museum that serves both academic and public audiences. With over 13,000 African artworks, WAM’s mission is to facilitate compelling encounters with African art for academics, students, and anyone who appreciates great art. The museum’s extensive collection includes historical and contemporary artworks, showcasing the rich diversity of Africa’s visual culture.

For more information, please visit WAM’s website, or connect with them on social media:

https://www.facebook.com/WitsArtMuseum

https://www.instagram.com/witsartmuseum_wam/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtgEIZOT88sGGrA-_-Ug1jQ/featured

About 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 over 30 production sites worldwide; the company has a global sales network in more than 140 countries.

In 2023, the BMW Group sold over 2.55 million passenger vehicles and more than 209,000 motorcycles worldwide. The profit before tax in the financial year 2023 was € 17.1 billion on revenues amounting to € 155.5 billion. As of 31 December 2023, the BMW Group had a workforce of 154,950 employees.

The success of the BMW Group has always been based on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company set the course for the future at an early stage and consistently makes sustainability and efficient resource management central to its strategic direction, from the supply chain through production to the end of the use phase of all products. 

www.bmwgroup.com

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/bmw-group/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/bmwgroup

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bmwgroup

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bmwgroup

X: https://www.x.com/bmwgroup

About BMW Group Cultural Engagement

Why Culture? Why not! Culture is knowledge, a sanctuary of beauty and depth, of meaning and peace. An inspiring escape. Tranquil at best, even unsettling sometimes. As a corporate citizen, the BMW Group takes social responsibility seriously, as part of which it has been involved in hundreds of cultural initiatives worldwide for over half a century, in the fields of contemporary art, music and film as well as in design. As a long-term partner, creative freedom is key – and as essential for groundbreaking works as it is for major innovations within a business enterprise like ours.

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

Instagram: @BMWGroupCulture

#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 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.

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/Berlin. From April 26 - 28, Gallery Weekend Berlin presents its 20th edition - spread across 69 locations with works by more than 100 international artists. The 55 participating galleries will showcase the diversity and quality of Berlin's gallery landscape with top-class exhibitions by both young and established artists. The BMW Group Cultural Engagement has been supporting Gallery Weekend Berlin as main partner since 2013. Together with Gallery Weekend Berlin, BMW is continuing the "Studio Visit" video series this year, meeting Berlin-based artists in their studios.

As part of the jointly initiated series, artists working in Berlin open the doors to their studios. This year, Julius von Bismark and Trisha Baga provide insights into their everyday artistic lives and add to the portfolio of the continuously growing series. Aziz Hazara, Anne Duk Hee Jordan, Sophie Reinhold, Josefine Reisch and Farkhondeh Shahroudi, who are also represented by participating galleries of Gallery Weekend, have already been hosts of "Studio Visit". The video series can be followed on gallery-weekend-berlin.de and the BMW Group Culture YouTube channel.

Antonia Ruder, Director Gallery Weekend Berlin, says: "We are delighted to be celebrating the 20th anniversary of Gallery Weekend Berlin with BMW as our long-standing partner. What began as a private initiative by a small group of Berlin gallery owners in 2005 is now a unique network of 55 galleries that invites visitors to a joint tour every spring. Guests travelling from all over the world can be sure that they will continue to see exciting, diverse and first-class exhibitions by established and emerging artists."

Gallery Weekend Berlin allows visitors the opportunity to get to know new names or deepen existing passions. The exhibitions curated for Gallery Weekend by the participating galleries will open on Friday, April 26, from 6 to 9 pm in each gallery. All Berlin and international guests are also invited to visit the galleries on Saturday 27 and Sunday April 28 (Saturday 11 am to 7 pm, Sunday 11 am to 6 pm).

Save the Date
Press Preview: Wednesday, April 24, 10 am
Director Antonia Ruder will give a digital welcome and short introduction to this year's Gallery Weekend Berlin. Click here to get to the event.

Further information and images of the participating galleries and artists can be found in the Gallery Weekend Berlin press area (password: kunst).

In addition to the Gallery Weekend, the BMW Group's long-term commitment to the capital also includes the Preis der Nationalgalerie. The associated exhibition opens on June 7, 2024 at Hamburger Bahnhof - Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart. In addition to its extensive commitment to the visual arts, BMW cooperates with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and invites to the traditional open-air format Staatsoper für alle on July 12, 2024 at Bebelplatz.

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

Please find attached the 09/2023 first time edition of the Sustainability Communication Backgrounder made by AK-31. The contents are for internal use only but may be passed further to any colleague who deals with sustainability issues. If you have questions concerning the content or handling just contact the editor. Changes are possible anytime.

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

London/Munich. For the fourth consecutive year BMW and Frieze continue their long-term partnership with the major art initiative BMW Open Work by Frieze. Drawing inspiration from BMW engineering this commission brings together art, technology and design in a pioneering multi-platform format. The artist selected by the curator Attilia Fattori Franchini to create the fourth edition of BMW Open Work by Frieze is the New York-based Madeline Hollander, who will present the commission in two phases, as an interactive digital platform and livery intervention during Frieze Week in London 2020, and as a live, site-specific installation at Frieze Los Angeles in 2021. 

This year Frieze London and Frieze Masters introduce a hybrid format of online and offline activity, with Frieze Viewing Room taking place alongside an expanded program of Frieze Week (October 5-11) activity across London. 

For this edition of BMW Open Work by Frieze the artist and experimental choreographer Madeline Hollander has been commissioned. Curated by Attilia Fattori Franchini, BMW Open Work gives artists a platform to push the boundaries of their artistic work, starting the project with a creative dialogue between arts, technology, engineering and design to pursue their practice in innovative new directions.

Working with performance, film and installation, Hollander explores how the human body in motion negotiates its limits within everyday systems of technology and engineering, industrial apparatus, intellectual property and daily rituals. Her performances and installations present perpetually looping events that intervene within spatial, psychological and temporal landscapes, and engage with novel modes of viewership. In her artistic practice, the artist positions numerous systems and devices of industrial modernity alongside sequences of human motion and behaviour in order to visualize the ways in which society and its urban environment have informed one another over time. Hollander presents her new commission for BMW Open Work in two phases at Frieze Week London 2020 with an interactive digital platform and livery intervention on BMW i3 electric vehicles, and as a live, site-specific installation at Frieze Los Angeles 2021.

Madeline Hollander said of her commission: “‘Sunrise/Sunset’ presents an immersive networked spectacle choreographed by sunsets and sunrises across the globe in real time. The piece, composed of hundreds of recycled BMW headlights, transforms an automatic adaptive system already embedded within vehicles, where headlights turn on/off and adjust accordingly in response to light sensors, into a live twinkling global map.” 

Attilia Fattori Franchini added: “Now in its fourth year, BMW Open Work has established itself as a unique moment of exchange between industrial knowledge, technology and artistic talent. Working with a thrilling artist such as Madeline Hollander, pushing the possibilities of movement to depict invisible systems or processes, brings the program into a new and exciting direction. I can’t wait for ‘Sunrise/Sunset’ to unfold across different platforms revealing Hollander’s investigation into perpetual loops, energy cycles and renewable power.”

Titled “Sunrise/Sunset” her project continues the artist's recent research into traffic patterns and working without human actors to depict unseen systems or processes. Emerging from an intense dialogue with BMW sustainability department and investigation into the automatic adaptive system of BMW headlights, Hollander creates for Frieze Los Angeles 2021 a site-specific, and self-sufficient, live installation composed of hundreds of recycled BMW LED headlights from the BMW Group Recycling and Dismantling Centre. Thus, the artist developed an energetic loop, a networked map choreographed by the sunsets and sunrises across the globe. Fascinated by the responsive nature of headlights technology which reacts to a number of factors such as movement, light and weather conditions, the artist syncs each headlight to different time zones thus creating a live ceaseless clock. As headlights are automatically switching to a “bright” setting at sunset in California, headlights are switching to fog settings as the sun rises in London.

With her site-specific installation for BMW Open Work during Frieze Los Angeles 2021, Madeline Hollander invites the viewer to observe the ready-made choreographies that define our surroundings, invisible and ubiquitous factors such as geographical location, light levels or time of the day and their strong influence on our perceptions and behaviours. In Hollander’s work our apparently erratic individual actions and everyday technologies synchronically align becoming a collective, and in this case cascading-dance.

The web-platform www.sunrise-sunset.com will be launched on October 7 during Frieze Week London 2020 and functions as preview and compendium to the site-specific installation, deepening and hyper-connecting part of the project research. Viewers will be invited to zoom in and out of a global map composed of headlights, each also observable in its microparts, sections and connections, lightening and darkening in response to their locations’ different times of the day. When exploring major cities on the map, users will also be peering into live-traffic cams streaming images from intersections from Berlin, New York, Rome, Los Angeles, a third eye on to the world mirroring the street traffic in a nonstop, 24/7 cycle.

Accompanying guests during Frieze Week in London, a fleet of unique BMW i3 electric vehicles will present the looping text “TOMORROW WILL BE NOTHING LIKE TODAY WILL BE NOTHING LIKE TOMORROW” a poetic advice conceived by the artist in conjunction with the project. The phrase, returning across different works by Hollander, crystallizes several conceptual and formal aspects of the artist's practice. Visible only on BMW i3 electric vehicles travelling across London, the intervention employs urban mobility to reiterate “Sunrise/Sunset”’s investigation of perpetual loops, energy cycles and renewable power. 

BMW Open Work by Frieze
BMW Open Work by Frieze is a major artistic initiative bringing together art, design and technology in pioneering multi-platform formats. For its premier in 2017, artist Olivia Erlanger integrated a motion-sensitive sculpture, audio and immersive fog in her work “Body Electric”; in 2018, Sam Lewitt engaged with BMW intellectual property and engine production to conceptually and physically explore the production cycle of a BMW engine in “CORE (the ‘Work’)”; in 2019, Camille Blatrix collaborated with BMW Individual to explore the primal and emotional relationships to labor and materiality, raising questions about functionality and desire in the installation “Sirens”.

Frieze Music
Following four successful collaborations, BMW has partnered with Frieze Music once again to present Lianne La Havas for Frieze London and Frieze Masters 2020. After a short performance, Jennifer Higgie will invite the singer/songwriter to talk about the influence of iconic Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo on her life and music. This evening will be available to watch and listen on IGTV @friezeartfair at 11 pm (CET).

For further questions please contact:
Doris Fleischer
BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs
Cultural Engagement
Telephone: +49-151-601-27806

Thomas Girst
BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs
Head of Cultural Engagement
Telephone: +49-89-382-24753

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

About Frieze
Frieze is the world’s leading platform for modern and contemporary art for scholars, connoisseurs, collectors and the general public alike. Frieze comprises three magazines - frieze, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week - and four international art fairs - Frieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York and Frieze Los Angeles.

Frieze was founded in 1991 by Matthew Slotover and Amanda Sharp, with the launch of frieze magazine, the leading international magazine of contemporary art and culture. In 2003, Sharp and Slotover launched Frieze London art fair, which takes place each October in The Regent’s Park, London. In 2012, they launched Frieze New York, which occurs each May in Randall’s Island Park, and Frieze Masters, which coincides with Frieze London in October and is dedicated to art from ancient to modern. In 2018, Frieze announced the launch of Frieze Los Angeles, which opened February 14–17, 2019 at Paramount Pictures Studios, Los Angeles. In 2016 Frieze entered into a strategic partnership with Endeavor, a global entertainment, sports and content company.

About Attilia Fattori Franchini
Attilia Fattori Franchini is an independent curator and writer based in Vienna. She is the curator of BMW Open Work by Frieze; Curva Blu, a residency project in Favignana, Sicily and is working on upcoming projects in Vienna and Naples. She investigates power structures, hegemonic systems and archetypal tropes and the narrative they produce. Her practice unfolds as dialectics exercised through collaboration. Selected projects include: KinoSüd, (2020); Marianna Simnett, Disappearing Berlin by Schinkel Pavillon, (2019); Falling Awake, film program, Vienna Contemporary (2019); Could you visit me in dreams? as part of curated_by 2018, Vienna; Red Lake at Point Centre for Contemporary Art, Nicosia (2018); ARS17+ at Kiasma, Museum, Helsinki (2017); Bold Tendencies, London (2015); and HAND, Barbican Centre, London (2013). www.attiliaff.com

About Madeline Hollander
Madeline Hollander (*1986 in Los Angeles) is an artist who works with performance, film and installation. Hollander has had solo exhibitions at Bortolami, NY (2020), The Artist's Institute, NY (2018); Bosse & Baum, UK, and SIGNAL, Brooklyn, NY (2016). Her work has been featured in the Whitney Biennial (2019); The Aldrich Museum, CT (2020); Helsinki Contemporary, Finland (2019); Serpentine Galleries, UK (2018); and the Centre Pompidou Metz, France (2019). Hollander was the choreographer for Jordan Peele’s feature film “Us” (2019) and Urs Fisher’s exhibition “PLAY” presented at Gagosian, NY (2019) and at Jeffrey Deitch, LA (2019). Upcoming projects include solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; The Shed, NY; and ARCH Athens, Greece.

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, Suhanya Raffel, 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

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BMW-Group-Culture
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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

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BMW-Group-Culture
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bmwgroupculture/
@BMWGroupCulture
#BMWGroupCulture

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.

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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.

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

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

Twitter: http://twitter.com/BMWGroup

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

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

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 Mumbai has concluded six weeks of free programs and projects exploring the urban challenges and conditions of the city. The Lab, which was presented in collaboration with the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, operated at six sites throughout the city from December 9, 2012 through January 20, 2013, making programming and participatory studies available to a diverse range of audiences and communities. 23,861 visitors of all ages engaged in 165 programs over 29 days, including design projects, surveys, tours, talks, workshops, and film screenings. Mumbai was the third stop for the mobile project, following presentations in New York and Berlin.

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, and developed with 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.

“By taking the Lab out into the city to satellite locations in Mumbai’s Fort, Malabar Hill, Mulund East, and Mahim neighborhoods and the Batliboy Compound in Mazgoan, we have been able to engage with and learn from audiences of many backgrounds and viewpoints,” said David van der Leer, curator of the BMW Guggenheim Lab. “But our work in Mumbai is not over. Findings from the Mumbai Lab are currently being compiled, and we look forward to sharing them with the public in the coming months. In addition, some of our programs and projects are expected to have a life beyond the run of the Lab.”

Programs were designed for audiences of all ages and ranged from high-level stakeholder discussions on Mumbai’s urban design and policy issues in the “Meet in the Middle” series; exchanges between professional and informal practitioners in a variety of fields in the “Bridging” series; interactive events and hands-on activities for families in the “City Dreams” series presented by the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum; accessible and entertaining explorations of important social and urban issues, such as women’s comfort and safety in social spaces, in the “Unwrapping Mumbai”series; and workshops and activities for children and senior citizens.

Several projects are designed to continue after the Lab closes, including a research project and a visual survey examining Mumbaikars’ perception of privacy and its relationship to public space. The results of the studies, which were developed in collaboration with Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research (PUKAR) and the Design Cell at Kamla Raheja Vidyanidji Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA), will be made available in the coming weeks.

Among the design proposals developed by the Lab is Landlink, a project that explores ways to refit existing water pipe infrastructure. In addition, an international design competition in collaboration with Mumbai Environmental and Social Network (MESN) and administered by Lord Cultural Resources was launched to reimagine the Kala Nagar Traffic Junction, one of the busiest transportation hubs in Mumbai. The competition drew submissions from several countries around the world, including the winning entries by the teams of Ms. Mayuri Sisodia and Mr. Kalpit Ashar, Ms. Sweta Parab and Mr. Hrishikesh More, and Ms. Radhika Mathur, in the professional category. Mr. Andres Perez and a team from Dr. D. Y. Patil College of Architecture – Ms. Shreesha Arondekar, Ms. Gargi Thakur, Ms. Pooja Kudale, Ms. Anaya Patil, Ms. Snehal Sonawane, Ms. Asmita Rai and Ms. Sayali Potnis, were honored in the student category. Select elements of the winning entries will be considered by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Redevelopment Authority (MMRDA), one of Mumbai’s main city agencies overseeing the revamping of the Kala Nagar Traffic Junction, for implementation in the coming years.

“We are pleased to have collaborated on this extraordinary project, encouraged dialogue, and brought together new ideas for Mumbai,” said Tasneem Mehta, Managing Trustee and Honorary Director, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum. “The BMW Guggenheim Lab has made an invaluable contribution to this city and, through their ideas and involvement, the people of Mumbai have made an invaluable contribution to the Lab. We look forward to continuing the important conversations we have begun, as the Lab continues its global journey.”

The physical structure for the Mumbai Lab, designed by Tokyo-based Architects Atelier Bow-Wow, working with Mumbai-based firm SDM Architects, will remain after the Lab’s run in Mumbai. An L-shaped structure made primarily of bamboo for the plaza at the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum in the city’s Byculla neighborhood will stay at the museum and be used as an informal gathering space for visitors.

Major themes that emerged in Mumbai as well as in Berlin and New York will be explored in an exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City this fall. Further details on the exhibition will be announced in the coming months.

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 David van der Leer and 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.

For complete press materials, go to bmwguggenheimlab.org/presskits
For publicity images, go to bmwguggenheimlab.org/pressimages
For publicity videos, go to bmwguggenheimlab.org/pressvideos
User ID = photoservice, Password = presspass

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 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 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 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 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 

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.

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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 once again 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 the opportunity to give an exclusive concert at Schloss Elmau as well as rehearse in the hotel’s facilities and a three-night stay.

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 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.

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

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.

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 looked at the history of race car graphics, light bursts and speed. The resulting graphic conceived by Koons is evocative of power, motion and light. The artist uses his signature saturated hues on a black background set against the car’s silver interior, which he himself chose. The design imparts a dynamic race car 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 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

http://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

Dear Colleagues, enclosed you can find further information on the TV
Footage/B-Roll for the young.euro.classic 2004 including satellite data
for august 18th and contents. The TV Footage will be offered
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