This Is The New BMW Art Car For the 21st Century

By Cyrus Dhabhar

1 mins read

Published on June 1, 2017

Highlights

BMW's 18th Art Car in a long iconic lineup that started in 1975
First ever Art Car by a Chinese Artist Cao Fei
Art Car based on the new M6 GT3 racecar that is finished in naked carbon

Technology evolves the world and everything in it. And art evolves with it. The BMW art car has seen an evolution from its inception back in 1975 through the decades with greats like Alexander Calder, Sandro Chia and of course, Andy Warhol all the way to 2017. To mark the 100^th year of BMW, the German luxury car-maker had commissioned two art cars, one for 2016 and one for 2017. Incidentally, the BMW Art Car from 2016 is number 19, crafted by American modern art legend John Baldessari while this, the brand new Art Car for 2017 is Number 18. We were invited to the Minsheng Museum in Beijing as the only media outlet from India to take a closer look at the Art Car that befits the modernity of the 21^st Century! BMW Art Car by Cao Fei The new BMW Art Car, created by Cao Fei is unique in its own right. The car, a M6 GT3 finished in naked carbonfibre has been used for this purpose but there isn’t any real art on it so to say. Cao Fei, the first Chinese artist to create a BMW Art Car is a multimedia or digital artist and has used virtual reality to create the Art Car. To view the art, one has to download an app – BMW Art Car #18 from the App Store and point the phone’s camera towards the car. This triggers the art to appear on the screen in all its glory. The art, a set of fancy squiggles and colourful lines (clearly we are not art journalists) become a sort of ‘installation art’ over the car to create the complete digital sculpture. The lines are set to reflect a traditional spiritual ceremony performed common throughout Asia in which new objects such as automobiles are being blessed, in this case wishing good luck to car and driver. BMW Art Car by Cao Fei The artist, Cao Fei said, “To me, light represents thoughts. As the speed of thoughts cannot be measured, the #18 Art Car questions the existence of the boundaries of the human mind. We are entering a new age, where the mind directly controls objects and where thoughts can be transferred, such as unmanned operations and artificial intelligence.” As we mentioned, this is the first ever BMW Art Car that does not really have any art on it. The virtual reality existence of the art is a big step for the BMW Art Car movement to move towards the 21^st century.