Jeff Koons BMW M3 GT2 Art Car premieres in Paris
Since 1975, artists throughout the world have turned BMW cars into art creating many memorable, if not tasteful interpretations of BMW’s most iconic models. Warhol, Lichtenstein, Stella, Rauschenberg, Hockney and Holzer have all turned their hand to Bavarian marque leading to the display of their work in renowned museums throughout the world including the Louvre, the Guggenheim Museums, and the Shanghai Art Museum.
Now it’s the turn of designer Jeff Koons. The germination of Koons’ collaboration with BMW began in 2003, when he expressed his desire to create a BMW Art Car. His relationship with BMW started more than two decades ago when he drove a BMW while residing in Munich, home to the BMW Group headquarters.
At the premiere of the 17th BMW Art Car Jeff Koons unveiled and signed his car in front of 300 international VIP guests at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the same place where Roy Lichtenstein back in 1977 first presented and signed his Art Car. The home of all BMW Art Cars is the BMW Museum in Munich and starting in September, Koons’ 17th BMW Art Car will be presented there together with some of its predecessors.
Koons and BMW
Koons is known for his heartfelt appreciation of cars. Earlier this year he was even recognized by music icon Bono of U2 as one of the ideal artists to design a car that would make the world fall in love with automobiles again.
Koons’ creative process for the BMW Art Car mirrors techniques, some borrowed from transportation design and development, which he regularly employs for his artistic production. For example, in the creation of Koons’ monumental sculptures, his studio uses 3-D CAD models to evaluate the surfaces, assembles them via methods found in bike chop shops, and paints them in a manner based on sophisticated automotive painting techniques.
The Koons car number, “79,” pays tribute to the 1979 Andy Warhol car which was assigned the number “76,” an homage to the 1976 Frank Stella car, both of which raced at Le Mans.
Koons’ canvas is a BMW M3 GT2, which was homologated to compete at this year’s Le Mans 24 hours and as before this very car will race at the event on 12th and 13th June 2010.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans race
In April 2010, BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen announced the driver line-up for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Andy Priaulx (GB), Dirk Müller (DE) and Dirk Werner (DE) will race the BMW Art Car #79, whilst Jörg Müller (DE), Augusto Farfus (BR), Uwe Alzen (DE) will drive the more conventionally attired BMW Le Mans car #78.
French auctioneer and racing driver Hervé Poulain first had the idea of asking an artist to paint the car he himself would compete with. Taking up this initiative in 1975, American artist Alexander Calder painted a BMW racing car, thus laying the foundation for the BMW Art Car programme.
The Art Car experiment continued a year later – Calder Art Car co-driver Sam Posey introduced Frank Stella to the idea of BMW Art Cars when the New York-based artist covered a BMW with his typical grid-like pattern. Stella’s work was then followed by a series of celebrated pop artists: Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg and apart from Rauschenberg’s Art Car, all of these took part in a Le Mans 24-hour race, some of them enjoying remarkable success.
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