Celebrating 50 years of BMW’s iconic Art Car series…
Few car brands can rival BMW’s cultural cachet thanks to its iconic Art Car series. For more than 50 years, the German auto giant has sporadically tapped world famous artists to transform a real-life BMW vehicle into a one-off art piece. Artists who have taken part in the initiative read like a who’s who of the mid-20th century to early 21st century art world and include Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella and Robert Rauschenberg as well as contemporary artists like David Hockney, Jeff Koons and Jenny Holzer.
The most recent addition to the club was New York-based contemporary artist Julie Mehretu, who unveiled her take on the BMW M Hybrid V8 racecar (number 20) last year. Remarkably, out of just 20 artists in this elite club, two of the Art Cars were designed by Australian artists. The first was Indigenous artist Michael Jagamara in 1989, closely followed by Ken Done later the same year. Thirty-six years later, Done’s car is back in the spotlight as BMW celebrated Ken’s contributions to the art world in his hometown. The setting was none other than the Ken Done gallery in Sydney’s the rocks, where MAXIM was invited to hear from the master himself as he relived the experience of creating his Art Car (officially number eight in the series) back in 1989.
Done’s car, a deliciously ‘80s BMW M3 complete with an abstract portrayal of parrots and parrot fish, is a cult favourite among Art Car aficionados. The car itself already had an eventful life before becoming an art piece and took to the road in 1987 with the JPS-BMW Team, carrying Jim Richards to victory in the Australian Group A Driver’s Championship.
The M3 only participated in one race in 1988, after which it was withdrawn from competition racing and earmarked for its ultimate destiny as a work of art. More than three decades later, this iconic M3 will join the other Art Cars on a globe-spanning tour by BMW set to kick off this month and visit 27 countries. Here, we sit down with Dr Thomas Girst, Global Head of Cultural Engagement at the BMW group, to talk all things Art Cars.
Hey, Thomas, how does it feel to sit down and chat to Ken Done and revisit such an iconic chapter of the BMW Art Car series?
It’s almost unreal because I’ve been in charge of the Art Cars since I started working for BMW in 2003. So, I know Ken Done from books and his contribution to the Art Cars and when I was told there was a chance I could meet him at his gallery and speak with him, I thought it amazing because the Art Cars live and breathe through their creators. To get as much of a sense of what they were thinking when they were creating this car, is invaluable to my work.
It’s crazy that out of the 20 BMW Art Cars in the world, two are from Australian artists. I mean, we’re a small country…
Right. I’m going to India next week, and at the Delhi art fair, I know I will be asked again and again, “Thomas, why isn’t there an Indian artist in the Art Car series?” It’s a country of 1.4 billion people. I cannot answer that question, because now, of course, the Art Cars are being chosen by an international jury of museum directors. But I take pride in the fact that there is this contribution from Australia, that somehow, in the ’80s, the Art Car series branched out and included great artists like Michael Jagamara and Ken Done.
In the ’80s when Ken’s car was commissioned, luxury brands partnering with artists was a pretty new concept. Did BMW pioneer this trend?
I think that’s true. Today I see a lot of luxury and tech brands moving into the field of arts and culture, but I also see a lot of crap that doesn’t do artists or the brand a favour. It is just like hopping from event to event instead of entering meaningful relationships with artists and I think that is what we stand for. We consider ourselves a leader in the fields of art and culture precisely because we have a history, a trajectory, a heritage that shows time and again – we’re not just talking the talk, but we’re walking the walk. And I want to keep it that way.
Each Art Car is an organic collaboration between BMW and the artist. How important is it to protect the artistic integrity of the Art Car series?
I’m sometimes asked by Regional Marketing heads to turn out Art Cars every time a model is being introduced in any country, but I don’t want Art Cars to be used in an inflationary way. I look at the BMW Art Cars as a sub brand and as Goodwill Ambassadors, in the field of arts and cultures for the brand BMW. So, the depth of the collaboration is important. When Jeff Koons talks about him being part of the BMW family, I really appreciate it a lot because it’s how I feel as well. Julie Mehretu is probably the most sought after and renowned artist at the moment and her work resonates and matters and stands the test of time. Yeah, Julie does not need to do a BMW Art Car for any sort of reason, but she did, and I’m just totally proud of it – she loved to work with our engineers and designers. It’s about the world that we can also offer that is opening up to artists that are sometimes very interested in not showing in the confines of the museum or a canvas.
Do you think the prospect of being in such an elite club with Andy Warhol and Ken Done sweetens the deal for artists?
We curate this so well that there’s only 20 artists in 50 years. We are a car company, if you want to talk about hits and misses within that series, no museum, no curator could have done better in half a century than those artists, right? It’s insane how important they all are. Esther Mahlangu, now is her big moment at 89 years old. She still has a small gallery in South Africa representing her. I feel like this is amazing and we were there very early in her career. So, these things play out in time, and these are the things that make me really proud when I look at the BMW Art Cars.
You travel the world for BMW, is there a fan favourite Art Car?
The home of the BMW Art Cars is the BMW Museum in Munich. They’re there but not all of them can be displayed at the same time. So, requests are coming in now with the BMW Art Car World Tour kicking off in March. So, if you look at the requests that are coming in, there’s some Art Cars out of these 20 that are not requested as often. That doesn’t mean they’re not as dear to me, or they wouldn’t be favourites with others. But of course, let’s say it’s the big five, as they say when you go on a safari, like the big Art Car, the big pop art artists at the very beginning, I think, are essential for the entire series. Then there’s those cars that have actually raced in a race. Now, unlike with Ken Done’s car, the cars are racing as Art Cars like Julie Mehretu, Jeff Koons, John Baldessari, Cao Fei and Jenny Holzer did.
Do you have a personal favourite?
I have three children, and if I was asked, “Who do you love the most?” I couldn’t say. So, I would always go with Alexander Calder’s, because it’s the very first one. It’s the nucleus, and it’s these basic colours, right? The blue, red and yellow, and out of which all of these other cars emerged. But Cao Fei took this onto a whole different level, where it’s no longer about wielding a brush, but about involving AR, an app, virtual reality and AI – all of this comes into play already with her card from 2017. Just now, the impact of Julie Mehretu’s car is still resonating with me, the way that she took on this project and came up with this insanely fierce car that I think unleashes something that her canvas can’t and that is so incredible to witness.
By REILLY SULLIVAN
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