Two of essentially the most vital BMW Artwork Automobiles will seem collectively for the primary time in North America on the 74th Pebble Seaside Concours d’Class®. Andy Warhol’s 1979 BMW M1 Group 4 and Julie Mehretu’s 2024 BMW M Hybrid V8 will headline the celebration of fifty years of the BMW Artwork Automotive program.
“We’re completely thrilled to have the ability to current two distinctive BMW Artwork Automobiles on the Pebble Seaside Concours d’Class on the fiftieth Anniversary of the BMW Artwork Automotive initiative,” mentioned Tom Plucinsky, Head of BMW Basic USA. “Now we have little question that the beautiful vistas of Pebble Seaside will present an exquisite backdrop for these two artworks by Andy Warhol and Julie Mehretu.”
Origins of the BMW Artwork Automotive Program
The BMW Artwork Automotive historical past started in 1975, when French racing driver and auctioneer Hervé Poulain commissioned Alexander Calder to color a BMW 3.0 CSL. Calder’s creation wasn’t only a showpiece—it competed within the 24 Hours of Le Mans, setting the tone for each Artwork Automotive that adopted: a mix of artwork, design, engineering, and motorsport.
Since then, the sequence has grown into a set of 20 “rolling sculptures” created by a few of the world’s most influential artists, together with Roy Lichtenstein, Jenny Holzer, David Hockney, Jeff Koons, Robert Rauschenberg, Esther Mahlangu, Olafur Eliasson, John Baldessari, Cao Fei, and Julie Mehretu. Throughout 5 a long time, the automobiles have mirrored a variety of creative actions—from minimalism and pop artwork to magical realism, abstraction, idea artwork, and digital artwork.
The Artwork Automotive program has at all times been about greater than ornament. It’s a platform for artists to interpret pace, motion, and expertise in their very own language, whereas celebrating BMW’s engineering and racing heritage.
Warhol’s BMW M1 Artwork Automotive No. 4 (1979)
Warhol’s M1 artwork automotive got here throughout a interval when the artist was experimenting with abstraction and gestural portray. In simply 28 minutes, he utilized greater than 13 kilos of polymer-based paint straight by hand, leaving seen brush strokes, drips, fingerprints, and scratches. “I tried to point out pace as a visible picture,” Warhol defined. “When an car is admittedly touring quick, all of the traces and colours are reworked right into a blur.”
In 1979, Manfred Winkelhock, Hervé Poulain, and Marcel Mignot drove the automotive at Le Mans, ending second in school—a outcome that underscored the Artwork Automotive ethos: a murals may be a aggressive race machine.
Julie Mehretu’s BMW M Hybrid V8 Artwork Automotive No. 20 (2024)
Julie Mehretu, an Ethiopian-born, New York–based mostly artist, constructed her design on the foundations of her monumental portray “Everywhen” (2021–2023). She reworked the work into layered grids, neon-colored veils, and her signature black markings, then used 3D mapping to wrap the imagery across the BMW M Hybrid V8 endurance racer. The Mehretu’s BMW M Hybrid V8 Artwork Automotive debuted on the Centre Pompidou in Paris earlier than collaborating within the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans, with its design utilized in light-weight foiling to endure the calls for of a full day of racing.
BMW Celebrates 50 Years of the three Sequence at Monterey
BMW will even mark the fiftieth anniversary of the three Sequence at Monterey Automotive Week. On the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, the 1977 BMW 320i Turbo Group 5 pushed by David Hobbs will likely be on show, alongside the 2004 BMW Staff PTG M3 GTR and the 2011 M3 GT ALMS. The BMW Automotive Membership of America will current examples from all seven generations of the three Sequence on the Legends of the Autobahn.
