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Not knowing the background of this collection, it is simply impossible to understand why BMWs are painted so unconventionally. And this story is quite simple. In 1975, the French driver Herve Poulin did not want to drive in a Le Mans 24-hour race in a factory-colored car. “We ought to invent something like that,” he decided and turned to his friend, sculptor Alexander Calder. And he didn’t stint on bright colors and turned a racing car into something unheard of.
And then it went, went! Over the years since the appearance of the first moving art object, 17 cars left the brush of various artists. Each is a work of art. For the true creator, after all, all is one - that canvas, that the car body. Unfortunately, not all of these cars managed to gain racing fame. Well, let.
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At number 93, flaunting on the hood, hides the first car, which marked the beginning of the BMW Art Cars collection.
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The second art car - 3.0 CSL appeared in 1976. The American artist Frank Stella (incidentally, a fan of auto racing) applied a laconic pattern in black and white to the car body. “My design is like a drawing transferred to the machine’s body,” Stella described his creation.
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BMW-535i, painted by Japanese Matazo Kayamo in 1990, turned out to be the most elegant in the entire collection. The theme of this art car is "Snow, the moon and flowers." In his work, the artist relied on traditional Japanese drawing techniques. According to the creator, the appearance of the car should refer to the culture of modern Japan.
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Robert Rauschenberg contributed to the development of the idea of a gallery on wheels. In 1986, he got no longer a racing car, but a production one. Rauschenberg was the first to use photographs in his work, and at the same time hinted at environmental problems associated with cars.
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In 1989, the Australian artist Ken Dan took up the brush. On the surface of the BMW-M3, he transferred the atmosphere of his homeland. To do this, Ken used the whole variety of bright colors, and the parrot and the parrot fish were taken as the basis of the image. According to the artist, they best reflect the essence of the brand - beauty and speed.
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Typically, art cars tour the world in small groups, rarely where you will find them assembled together. You can admire art on wheels from time to time in the Louvre, the Venetian Palazzo Grassi, the Guggenheim and New York museums. In its entirety, the collection is occasionally reunited only in its native nest - the BMW brand museum in Munich.
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In 1977, Roy Lichtenstein, a pop art devotee and comic book lover, was entrusted with decorating racing equipment. The concept is simple: the view from the window of a traveling car. The artist "put everything he was capable of into it." Such zeal did not pass without a trace - in Le Mans, the car became the ninth overall and the first in its class.
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Two years ago, Jeff Koons portrayed an explosion of colors on the M3 GT2. Looking at this art car, you think that the car is driving. The creator drew inspiration from the very object of creativity - he ran a couple of laps on it along the race track. No wonder that the speed was conveyed by the artist so convincingly: acceleration to hundreds of this “picture” takes 3.4 seconds!
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In 1979, the BMW M1 fell into the hands of Andy Warhol. The artist did not waste time creating a model, as his colleagues did, but took a brush and turned the car into a work of art in 23 minutes. Quickly! After all, the author intended to depict a speed that blurred lines and colors. In the sports arena, this BMW turned out to be almost as fast as the drawing on it - the sixth place in the overall standings.
