Back in 1975 BMW commissioned artist Alexander Calder to paint its entry in that year’s LeMans 24 Hours race.  The program was very popular with the public and BMW has sponsored another car every couple of years.  My car club has an article whenever another comes out, so I was excited when I learned someone made a real art book about the series.  Written by Iria Candela, Eva Karcher, and Ulrich Lehmann, “BMW Art Cars” covers the first 18 vehicles, created 1975-2010.

The series was initiated by art enthusiast Hervé Poulain who happened to be friends with the director of BMW Motorsports.  The book discusses how all this came about, and what kept it going.  The cars are definitely not part of some global marketing plan, they just sort of happen.  Since I personally think BMW cars are works of art to start with, they seem a perfect platform.

The book devotes a short chapter to each car.  Or rather to each artist.  The authors discuss the artists background and influences, how they became involved, and how the process influenced subsequent works.  They also discuss the medium of production.  (Some are hand painted, some are plastic wrappers, etc.).  I was intrigued by how many different approaches were taken.  Several talked about speed, but Esther Mahlangu talked of an African practice of decorating walls to tell stories.

I am particularly fond of the first two, both 3.0 CSL’s, by Alexander Calder and Frank Stella.  The latter made the background of the car look like engineering paper.  Also the Jeff Koons M3 GT2 which has bright lines going front to back like a hyperspace jump in Star Wars.  A lot of the cars in the middle of the series were not destined or even suited for racing.

Some of the projects are a bit off the beaten path.  I remember the first time I saw the Jenny Holzer V12 LMR car with its “Protect Me From What I Want” in block letters across the top.  But if you look at her earlier body of work, BMW went in with open eyes.  In the wildest example a guy named Olafur Eliasson took a hydrogen-powered prototype and gave it a body of ice.  It literally has to be shown in a refrigerated room.

BMW Art Cars is a beautiful coffee-table sized book.  There is a two-page picture of each car, amongst others.  Mine came in a hard outer shell and featured the thickest pages I’ve ever encountered (seven thousandths to be precise).

Since the book was published, BMW has commission two more art cars.  One is a white M6 GTLM with big dots by John Baldessari.  The other is underway by Cao Fei which will “explore virtual and augmented reality”.