The BMW Art Car Gallery: Second Floor

January 5, 2016

Story By John Brooks

1982 saw a change in direction for the BMW Art Car - no longer intended for the tracks or even the streets, it would always be a static sculpture, at least under the contemporary management. The artist, Ernst Fuchs, was Austrian rather than the previous creators, all from the USA. While the car, a production-line BMW 635 CSi, was static, the work was given motion and emotion by Fuch’s fiery vision.

Fuchs expressed his own interpretation at the time. “In painting the BMW 635 Csi, I gave expression to various experiences, fears, desires and implorations, but also to free aesthetic artistic creativity. I call this car ‘Firefox on Harehunt’. It represents a hare racing across a motorway at night and leaping over a burning car - the primeval fear and bold dream of surmounting a dimension in which we live.”

“It tells me its colors, I read them in its lines and shape, I hear its speedy call and can already see the handsome hare leaping through the flames of love - driving away fears.”

Four years would pass till the next Art Car and Texan artist, Robert Rauschenberg, was commissioned to create his vision of art and the automobile. Rauschenberg had evolved his own style of expression, “Combine Painting”: a collage technique incorporating real-life objects and newspaper photographs into an abstract panel painting. Rauschenberg founded EAT (Experiments in Art and Technology) in the ‘60s, providing an inspiration for many artists until the present.

Rauschenberg expressed his thoughts on the Art Car project: “I think mobile museums are great. For me, this car is a dream come true.”

The left of the car shows a “Man of the World” by Bronzino and the right side an odalisque painted by Ingres. Photos of trees and swamp grass address environmental issues associated with the motor car. The hub caps are photos of antique plates.

In 1989 Australian, Michael Jagamara Nelson, was the artist selected to create the next Art Car. He was a leading proponent of the ‘Papunya-Tula’ movement, celebrating the traditional techniques of Aboriginal art and painting.

The raw material for the work was to be a Group A BMW M3 that had seen action in both 1987 and 1988, run by BMW Australia. Tony Longhurst had grabbed the AMSCAR title in 1987 and the following year it was driven by Aussie Touring Car legend, Peter Brock. Touring Car racing is king in Australia so this car had a great pedigree and great significance for the local audience.

Nelson described his seven days’ work painting the car as follows. “The car is a landscape as if viewed from an airplane - I have included water, the kangaroo and the possum.”

When Nelson was asked recently what would he do differently if given another opportunity to paint an Art Car, he declared, “I’d do it exactly the same way today, using the same materials and paints. I still paint in the same way.”

1989 saw a second Australian Art Car and based on another Touring Car with real provenance, this BMW M3 had carried Jim Richards to the Australian Touring Car Championship in 1987. The artist was also Australian, Ken Done.

The project excited Done: “I had heard of Alexander Calder’s car and the others, though I had never seen one in person. To be asked to be in the same company as Calder, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol - giants of the art world - was a great compliment, like being asked to drive with Moss, Fangio and Senna, as serious as it gets.”

Done explained his vision: “ I wanted hot colors at the front, because that’s where the engine is and cool colors towards the rear.”

“ More than anything I wanted the car to look as if it was a about to go, even to fly, even if it was standing still. Great cars are about speed.”

Heading North across the Pacific the BMW Art Car project found its next manifestation in Japan. Matazo Kayama fused the modern technique of airbrushing with the traditional Japanese art of ‘maki-e’, where lacquer is sprinkled gold and silver powder.

The canvas for this vision of the point where German engineering and performance meets the ancient Japanese elements of cherry blossom, the sun and the moon was a BMW 535i. Hayama explained his objectives: “ I wanted to combine an element of traditional Japanese art forms with an extremely modern art object. I became most aware of the clear lines of the BMW, once the car was completely covered with the colorful design.”

There is a dream-like quality to this work, a sense of contemplation and reflection that fits in harmony with the engineering excellence of the German automobile in a balanced way. This car carries the genuine dna of the BMW Art Car family.

(Photos: Copyright and courtesy of BMW AG)

(Interviews taken from BMW Art Cars ISBN 978-3-7757-3345-8 ©BMW AG)