The Guggenheim Hosts the Unveiling of the 20th BMW Art Car

The stage: the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York Metropolis. The canvas: the BMW M Hybrid V8. The artist: New York-based artist Julie Mehretu, a MacArthur Award and the US Division of State Medal of Arts Award recipient with works exhibited at LACMA, Whitney Museum of American Artwork, and the Walker Museum of Artwork.

Julie Mehretu

Unanimously chosen by a world jury of museum administrators and curators, the announcement of the twentieth BMW Artwork Automobile was staged on the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York Metropolis. Mehretu may have carte blanche to decorate the newest “rolling sculpture”– the 640-hp BMW M Hybrid V8, able to observe speeds upward of 215 mph – forward of its look within the 24-Hour race of Le Mans in June 2024.

Since 1975, the German automaker has invited artists from all around the world to take part within the BMW Artwork Automobiles assortment, an initiative born from French racing driver and artwork lover Hervé Poulain, who, in collaboration with then Head of BMW Motorsport, Jochen Neerpasch, requested his artist good friend Alexander Calder to color an vehicle. The outcome was a BMW 3.0 CSL, a car that went onto compete within the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1975, adorned by Calder’s creative contact.

Since then, the likes of Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jenny Holzer, David Hockney, Cao Fei, and John Baldessari have created racing vehicles for BMW. A number of of our favourite previous BMW Artwork Automobiles under:

Roy Lichtenstein’s 1977 third version BMW Artwork Automobile Photograph: Enes Kucevic

Andy Warhol’s 1979 4th version of the BMW Artwork Automobile

Robert Rauschenberg’s 1986 sixth version BMW Artwork Automobile Photograph: Enes Kucevic

César Manrique’s 1990 tenth version BMW Artwork Automobile Photograph: Enes Kucevic

Esther Mahlangu’s 1991 twelfth version BMW Artwork Automobile

David Hockney’s 1995 14th version BMW Artwork Automobile Photograph: Enes Kucevic

Olafur Eliasson’s wildly imagined 2007 sixteenth BMW Artwork Automobile stands out for its metal mesh pores and skin and layers of ice.

John Baldessari standing with the BMW M6 GTLM Artwork Automobile #19 in 2016.

I’ve beloved vehicles for many of my life, as toys, as objects, as prospects. It’s from that house that I’m actually excited to be engaged on the following BMW Artwork Automobile greater than something. The joys of the velocity, the 24 Hour race of Le Mans and what’s doable to invent in hybrid and absolutely electrical automobiles as future modes of play and pushing forward into new terrains of transportation and motorsports.

– Julie Mehretu

The twentieth BMW Artwork Automobile will go on to be offered collectively on the Zeitz Museum of Up to date Artwork Africa in Cape City in 2025 alongside works born from the Translocal Media Workshop Collection, gatherings in eight African cities over the course of 9 months hosted by Julie Mehretu and Mehret Mandefro, meant to strengthen the media ecosystem throughout Africa and create areas for artists to fulfill, trade, and collaborate.

Gregory Han is the Managing Editor of Design Milk. A Los Angeles native with a profound love and curiosity for design, mountaineering, tide swimming pools, and street journeys, a number of his adventures and musings might be discovered at gregoryhan.com.