BMW Art Cars

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Thomas Girst Editor

Text by Carl Magnusson

Text by Phil Patton et al.

Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, Germany, 2014, English

Nonfiction, Product/Industrial Design

9.6 x 11 inches, hardcover, 192 pages, 160 illustrations

ISBN: 9783775733458

Suggested Retail Price: $51.00

From the Publisher. Traces the development of the BMW Art Cars, the so-called “rolling sculptures” designed by artists over the last 40 years for those interested in art and design, and all car and technology fans.

Twelve years after the first Benz patent motorcar Number 1 made its first journey in July 1886, a car raced across the image in Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s lithograph, The Automobilist. La 628-E8, a novel named after the license plate number of its author, Octave Mirbeau, was published in the early 20th century. In his Futurist manifesto, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti rated the beauty of a racecar’s revving engine and speed higher than the aesthetics of the Nike of Samothrace. Ever since its invention, artists have been examining the automobile, and the BMW Art Cars have played a central role here. Alexander Calder’s BMW 3.0 CSL from 1975 was the first in a series brought to life by Hervé Poulain, lover of auto racing and works of art, in collaboration with BMW’s head of motorsports, Jochen Neerpasch. Seventeen artists have since designed BMW models, and the “rolling sculptures” have not only proved themselves in museums, but also on the race track at Le Mans.

Artists featured (selection): Alexander Calder, Sandro Chia, Ken Done, Olafur Eliasson, Ernst Fuchs, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Michael Jagamara Nelson, Matazo Kayama, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Esther Mahlangu, César Manrique, A.R.Penck, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, and Andy Warho.l

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