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 unique 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, 17 international artists have designed BMW models, among
them some of the most renowned artists of our time: Alexander Calder (BMW 3.0
CSL, 1975), Frank Stella (BMW 3.0 CSL, 1976), Roy Lichtenstein (BMW 320 Group
5, 1977), Andy Warhol (BMW M1 Group 4, 1979), Ernst Fuchs (BMW 635CSi, 1982),
Robert Rauschenberg (BMW 635CSi, 1986), Michael Jagamara Nelson (BMW M3 Group
A, 1989), Ken Done (BMW M3 Group A, 1989), Matazo Kayama (BMW 535i, 1990),
César Manrique (BMW 730i, 1990), A. R. Penck (BMW Z1, 1991), Esther Mahlangu
(BMW 525i, 1991), Sandro Chia (BMW M3 GTR, 1992), David Hockney (BMW 850CSi,
1995), Jenny Holzer (BMW V12 LMR, 1999), Ólafur Eliasson (BMW H2R, 2007) and
Jeff Koons (BMW M3 GT2, 2010).