It all started in 1975 when Alexander Calder did something unheard of. At the request of racer and art lover Herve Poulain, he painted the BMW 3.0 CSL model that competed in the 24-hour Le Mans race. With this, he began to write a very special chapter in BMW history, as the 3.0 CSL is considered the first car of the BMW Art Car collection, which still fascinates art and car lovers 40 years later. On this occasion, BMW collected all 17 such cars in a pile, which are the work of 16 artists who walked the Caldera route. Among them is Andy Warhol.
BMW marks this year 40 years of the BMW Art Car collection, the collections where the BMWs that became painting canvas. The whole thing was initiated by the mentioned Herve Poulain and Alexander Calder, and names such as Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein and Jeff Koons.
BMW Art Cars is interesting mainly because interweaves competitive motoring, art, technology and design, as BMW Group Vice President Maximilian Schöberl put it. A case of moving works of art, which are currently on display in Hong Kong, and will continue their full line-up tour in New York, Miami and Shanghai.
READ MORE: BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage – a concept in memory of its famous and timeless predecessor
Automotive works of art were created at irregular intervals ever since 1975 and when not on tour (usually traveling separately or in smaller groups) they stand in the BMW Museum in Munich, otherwise the domicile of the BMW Art Car collection. The first four works by Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol were recently on display by Lake Como at the Concorso d'Eleganza event, and the mobile works of art also visited our region twice. In 2013 namely, we hosted the work of the artist Michael Jagamara Nelson, BMW M3 Group A, and one path of the Earth around the sun later BMW M3 GT2 Jeff Koons.
