BMW Is Celebrating 50 Years of Art Cars at Art Basel Hong Kong

2025 is a big milestone year for BMW. Since starting its iconic BWM Art Car program five decades ago, the series has provided artists with a fascination by automobiles a perfect playground to combine art and design with motorsport and engineering.

In celebration of 50 years, the BMW Art Cars will be taking a world tour, first kicking off in Europe on March 20 before coming to Asia. Part of the presentation will see the BMW Art Cars created by Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, David Hockney and Jeff Koons will be on display at the Museum of Applied Arts and the SPARK Art Fair in Vienna for the BMW Group Niederlassung Wien event “(R)Evolution of Art.” The latest and 20th BMW Art Car – the BMW M Hybrid V8 by renowned American painter Julie Mehretu – will be displayed at Art Basel in Hong Kong on 28-30 March. Past examples of the art car include Warhol’s iteration for the fourth car, Art Car 14 by Hockney, 17th by Koons and more. The BMW Art Cars, often referred to as “rolling sculptures” or “art on wheels” have captivated audiences globally, featuring in museums, galleries, and cultural institutions worldwide.

In an exclusive conversation with Prof. Dr. Thomas Girst, BMW Group’s Global Head of Cultural Engagement since 2003, he gives BWM Art Car fans an introspective look at how the series has redefined creative innovation in the automotive industry.

Hypebeast: How has the BMW art cars project evolved over the past 50 years, and what have been some of the most notable milestones along the way?

Dr. Thomas Girst: For more than five decades, BMW has collaborated internationally with many of the most renowned cultural institutions, initiating hundreds of long-term projects worldwide. Our focus of our company’s long-term commitment is on contemporary art, music, film, architecture and design. In all cultural activities, BMW guarantees absolute creative freedom – an essential principal for groundbreaking artistic and for creating a successful business.
We do this because we believe that our engagement in the arts is fundamental to return something to society. It’s a balance between a responsible corporate citizen and brand building – both of which shape how our brand is perceived by stakeholders. Today, a company’s reputation is not just defined by financial performance but also by its values and contributions to society. What do we give back to the communities where we do business?

Art is very much intertwined with our products. If you take the all-electric BMW i7, for example: with the press button, its display transforms into a Digital Art Mode, designed by the great Chinese contemporary artist Cao Fei – who also created one of the iconic BMW Art Cars. We collaborate with Academy Award winner Hans Zimmer, to work with our Sound Design to develop special drive sounds for all our BMW electric vehicles. We call this BMW – IconicSounds Electric.

From the invention of the automobile almost 150 years ago, artists have been fascinated by cars and mobility. In 1909, the Futurist manifesto on the front page of Le Figaro hailed the car, its speed and its sound, as the new sculpture for the 20th Century. In the 1920’s already the French artist Sonja Delaunay designed cars and matching clothes. The BMW Art Cars add to this amazing history and trajectory, involving some of the greatest artist of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries.

What is the selection process like for choosing artists to collaborate on BMW art cars, and how do you ensure diversity and innovation in these partnerships?

BMW Art Cars are three words that stand for the legendary fusion of BMW car icons and world-famous artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, David Hockney or Jeff Koons, Jenny Holzer Esther Mahlangu and Julie Mehretu.

The initiative didn’t begin with PR and marketing colleagues putting their heads together thinking of how to introduce our brand into the arts. It all started in 1975 when French racing driver Hervé Poulain had the visionary idea of commission an artist to design on his racing car. The trajectory of this iconic series has its roots right at the racetrack. No one could have predicted what it was the start of the most consistent fusion of automobiles and art ever seen. Everyone interested in design, in the arts, in motorsports and racing, in technology and culture – creating instant enthusiasm for many! The concept is simple yet extraordinary: a globally renowned artist is invited to transform a BMW into a one-of-a-kind masterpiece. It’s a unique dialogue between the artist and this modern canvas, a conversation between his or her vison and our engineers, designers, and racedrivers. An exchange of ideas at the center of true co-creation. A car is not a typical medium for an artist, and it could be argued that it pushes artists in a way that a more traditional option, such as a canvas, would not. Artists don’t have to sing our song, artists can be critical of certain aspects of mobility, and we value this exchange as much as we value their commitment and excitement.

To answer your question: For the BMW Art Car artists, for the past 20 years, there is a jury process in place where we get to propose the car but the selection committee, comprised of museum directors and chief curators from around the world (from Koyo Kouoh to Anita Dube, from Stefanie Rosenthal to Madeleine Grynzstein, from Hans Ulrich Obrist to Massimiliano Gioni to Cecilia Alemani and the late Okwui Enwezor – the jury is always changing) who alone make the decision. We want to have an open and transparent process where not ourselves but the great knowledgeable people within the art world get to decide who should create the next BMW Art Car. The vote for Julie Mehretu was unanimous!

In what ways do BMW art cars reflect the intersection of art, technology, and automotive design, and how has this fusion contributed to the legacy of the project?

The programme originally focused on racing cars, but it’s evolved to include series production models too, especially when the BMW Group became a truly global company in the 80S and 90s. Each BMW Art Car is a priceless original owned by BMW and showcased in the company’s museum in Munich or at prestigious cultural events around the world.

Art cars are no longer about artists wielding brushes. We embrace the latest technologies, both in the arts as well as in our core business. Already in 2017, Cao Fei made use of Augmented and Virtual Reality as part of her Art Car project and in. Already in 2021, we blended art and algorithms by creating the “Ultimate AI Masterpiece” with the BMW 8 series Grand Coupe as a canvas. In 2024, we launched the 20th Art Car in Paris, France, which is designed by New York based artist Julie Mehretu. She used the BMW M Hybrid V8 race car, which competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June 2024. Julie’s design was inspired by the question: What would a painting look like if the car were to drive through it and became part of the work itself? It’s a performative painting.

Can you discuss any specific challenges or successes encountered in bridging the worlds of art and automotive industry through the BMW art cars program?

As an integral part his BMW H2R Art Car “Your mobile expectations”, based on a record breaking racecar entirely running on hydrogen, Ólafur Elíasson edited a book on the future of the automobile which our chief designer turned into mandatory reading for hundreds of his colleagues. With the BMW Art Car, there are always challenges – which we try and solve together. Jeff Koons was eager to pursue lenticular foiling but couldn’t add to the weight or the aerodynamics of the race car so as not to compromise its chances of winning. Cao Fei wanted the blackest black for her car to be able to run AR on yet another artist had the rights for Vantablack absorbing almost all light and did not want to share it with her at the time. When you strive for the very best, roadblocks are what keep you going and we always found a way for the best results possible and making the artist’s vision come true!

What role do you believe BMW art cars play in shaping the cultural identity and reputation of the BMW brand globally, and how do you measure the impact of these collaborations?

We consider the BMW Art Cars a sub-brand. They are goodwill ambassadors no matter where they are being shown around the world, parents dragging their kids, and – even better! – the other way around. The BMW Art Cars are not only at the epicenter of our cultural engagement but they are also part of the DNA of our core business. How do you measure something priceless? Maybe by looking at all the other brands wanting in as well! Copy apparently is the greatest from of compliment. As leaders in the field, we take the high road.

Looking back at the past 50 years of BMW art cars, are there any particular collaborations or artworks that stand out to you as particularly groundbreaking or influential?

To me personally it is the greatest privilege of my role at BMW to be able to work with artists of such global renown for a longer period of time. Whether it is hugging 6ft 7in John Baldessari, discussing 19th Century ukiyo-e Japanese woodprints with Julie Mehretu or learning from Jeff Koons that every human being on this planet is born a winner as we have already succeeded in the biggest possible competition taking place in our mother’s womb. Naming a favorite BMW Art Car is impossible for me, it is as if someone would ask me which one of my three children is my most beloved. Each and every car stands out to me and Alexander Calder’s primary color 1975 BMW 3.0 CSL is certainly the nucleus of them all. To me it is fascinating how they tell a story amongst each other, how they are greater together than their individual parts. Jeff Koons’ M3 GT2 starting number is 79. The year in which Warhol’s M1 raced in le Mans. Not a coincidence. Hockney shows the inside of the car on its outside, the other way around from Lichtenstein’s – which in his typical Benday-dot style shows everything the car may encounter, including a setting sun on one side and a rising sun on the other. He is paying homage to the 24 Hours race of Le Mans, just like Jenny Holzer’s, with her truism “Protect me from what I Want” lighting up in fluorescent green at night. And within Julie Mehretu’s car, in her own words, there is a shout-out embedded to Frank Stella’s car of 1976!