BMW Group India presents the 1979 Art Car painted by most renowned American artist Andy Warhol in India. His creation will be exclusively exhibited from 31 January to 2 February 2020 at the India Art Fair in New Delhi. After Alexander Calder, Frank Stella and Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol created the 4th Art Car for BMW with the BMW M1Group 4 to compete at the infamous 24-hour race of Le Mans. BMW Art Cars or the ‘Rolling Sculptures’ are original masterpieces of art that demonstrate an individual synthesis of artistic expression and automobile design. Since 1975, 19 international artists have created Art Cars based on contemporary BMW automobiles of their times, all offering a wide range of artistic interpretations.
4th BMW Art Car: Andy Warhol 1979 BMW M1 Group 4
“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.
A person who declares soup cans a work of art or aspires to have a department store closed so that it may be preserved as a museum for posterity, will not see any conflict between technology and creativity. Consequently, this is how he worked. Instead of first designing a scale model and leaving the final completion to his assistants as his predecessors did, the pop art legend painted the BMW M1 from the beginning to the end himself. “I have tried to give a vivid depiction of speed. If a car is really fast, all contours and colours will become blurred”.
BMW Art Car Collection
For over 40 years, BMW Art Car Collection has fascinated art and design enthusiasts as well as lovers of cars and technology with its combination of fine art and innovative automobile technology. Several cars from BMW Art Car Collection are usually on display at the BMW Museum in Munich, the home of BMW Art Cars, as part of its permanent collection. The remaining BMW Art Cars travel the globe – to art fairs as well as exhibitions.
The BMW Art Car Collection was born when French race car driver and art aficionado Hervé Poulain, together with Jochen Neerpasch, then BMW Motorsport Director, asked his artist friend Alexander Calder to design an automobile. The result was a BMW 3.0 CSL, which competed in 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1975, where it quickly became the crowd’s favourite. Since then, 19 international artists have designed BMW models.
The BMW Art Car Collection is by no means complete as it stands. The number of exhibits will continue to grow, adding artistic expressions to the collection. Since its inception, BMW Group India has participated in leading cultural engagements across the country.
In 2007, two BMW Art Cars embellished by world-renowned artists Andy Warhol (BMW M1, 1979) and Roy Lichtenstein (BMW 320i, 1977) were presented at the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai. BMW Art Car by Jeff Koons, Sandro Chia and Cesar Manrique have been exclusively showcased at India Art Fair. Since 2012, BMW has partnered with Kochi-Muziris Biennale, the contemporary art fair, which brings international artists to India and creates a global platform for Indian artists. In 2012-13, the innovative BMW Guggenheim Lab came to India. Based at Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum and conducted at six different sites in Mumbai, the lab organised six weeks of the free program with diverse audience and communities addressing the challenges and conditions of the urban city.
For almost 50 years now, the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in over 100 cultural cooperation’s worldwide. The company places the main focus of its long-term commitment to 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. The BMW Group gives absolute creative freedom in all its cultural activities, as this initiative is as essential for producing groundbreaking artistic work as it is for major innovations in a successful business.
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