Some cars are considered works of art, and racing is also an art form. Half a century ago, BMW brought these two elements together on the initiative of French racing driver and auctioneer Hervé Poulain, creating the first BMW Art Car. Since then, 20 official Art Cars have been created, some based on racing cars, others on production cars.
The BMW Art Cars appeal to both car and art enthusiasts. Officially opened on 4 July, no fewer than eight Art Cars will be on display at the Louwman Museum in The Hague in The Netherlands as part of the summer exhibition “Fine Art on Wheels”, which runs until 31 August. Dailysportscar was there in advance and enjoyed the show.
Things that seem complicated can sometimes be very simple. “We were brainstorming about suitable themes for future exhibitions, and that’s when the idea of the BMW Art Cars came up. We had no idea that they were celebrating their 50th anniversary this year; we only found out later,” says Ronald Kooijman, director of the Louwman Museum, while enjoying a cup of coffee in the pleasant ambience of the museum restaurant, which resembles a historic village square, complete with decorated shop windows and a workshop.
“So we called BMW and asked if we could borrow a few Art Cars. They said yes and asked which ones we wanted. We had already made a list, and they were able to give us all of them. That’s how this exhibition came about. It was only later that it became clear that this is the largest number of Art Cars that can be found in one place during the anniversary year!”
The exhibition at the Louwman Museum is also the only opportunity – with the exception of the three cars in BMW’s own museum in Munich – to see the Art Cars for more than a few days during the anniversary year. And it must be said: it is hard to imagine a setting in which the cars could be shown to better advantage.
The exhibition hall of the Louwman Museum is the perfect location to display the eight cars. They fill about half of the hall, leaving the rest empty, which is fine because it creates a pleasant, spacious effect without other cars or objects to distract the viewer.
Racing cars were the origin of the BMW Art Cars, and we must admit in all honesty that we also consider racing cars modified by artists to be the most beautiful Art Cars, although there are undoubtedly people who consider motor racing to be something for cultural philistines and prefer Art Cars based on passenger cars, sometimes with traditional or indigenous scenes on them. Tastes differ, and that’s a good thing!
The 3.0 CSL, modified by Alexander Calder (1975), the 3.0 CSL by Frank Stella (1976), the 320i by Roy Lichtenstein (1977) (below) and the M1 by Andy Warhol (1979) are the first four Art Cars in history to be on display at the Louwman Museum.
These are all cars with a racing history, all having raced in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and, in the case of Stella’s car, also in the 1976 World Sportscar Championship round at Dijon. Calder’s car stands out for its bright and vibrant colour scheme, which includes yellow, red, blue and white, and was particularly popular with the press and spectators when it competed at Le Mans with Hervé Poulain as one of the drivers.
Frank Stella’s 3.0 CSL features a more technical theme, as the entire bodywork is covered with a grid pattern that incorporates multiple lines and figures, reminiscent of a design drawing. German artist and painter Walter Maurer transferred Stella’s design to the car. Roy Lichtenstein became famous for his enlarged drawings that looked like they came from comic strips. He also incorporated elements from these, such as the dots and lines and bright colours, into his modified 320i, with the lines representing the road on which the car is travelling, according to the artist.
Andy Warhol modified the M1 sports car in a session lasting just 28 minutes with a thick layer of paint in many colours. The rough style with thick blobs of paint is clearly visible in several places on the car. In 2022, the car was sprinkled with flour by climate activists during an exhibition in a museum in Milan.
The next Art Car in the exhibition is number 10, a 730i by Cèsar Manrique from 1990. With its colourful paintwork, Manrique created a tribute to the island of Lanzarote, where he comes from.
This is followed by Art Car number 12, a 525i by Esther Mahlangu from 1991. The South African artist reproduced the colours and patterns that people from the Ndebele tribe paint on their houses.
In 1995, American artist David Hockney redesigned an 850 CSi, Art Car number 14. Hockney is considered a pop art artist, just like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, who created their own Art Cars two decades before him. Unlike most Art Cars, Hockney’s creation does not exude speed or power, but symbolises the artist’s own life and elements that play a role in it, such as his dog and landscapes from his surroundings.
The eighth Art Car on display in The Hague is also the most recent in the selection, number 17, which is another racing car, an M3 GT2, which was given a multicoloured design by Jeff Koons in 2010. ‘It’s about being first,’ Koons said at the time, explaining his idea, with which the car appeared at the start of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. However, Koons was not thinking of a car race, but something completely different…
To mark the 50th anniversary of the BMW Art Cars, an updated version of the beautiful book on this theme has been published by German publisher Hatje Cantz. In words and pictures, all the finesses and background information of the 20 Art Cars are revealed, supplemented with interviews and essays.
Compared to the previous edition of the book, which was published in 2018, Julie Mehretu’s Art Car, the BMW M V8 Hybrid with which DTM champions Sheldon van der Linde and René Rast, together with Robin Frijns, raced in last year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, has now also been included. The book, 236 pages in hardcover, in a slipcase, is published in German and English and is of course also available in the Louwman Museum shop.
The “Fine Art on Wheels” exhibition can be visited until August 31 at the Louwman Museum, located at Leidsestraatweg 57 in The Hague, The Netherlands. During the summer holidays, the museum is open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For information and tickets, please visit https://louwmanmuseum.nl/en/
Photos: Rebocar/R. de Boer
