BMW just announced two new art cars will be commissioned from Chinese artist Cao Fei and American artist John Baldessari. The artists will get the new M6 GT3 as there canvas and will join other artists like Jenny Holzer (1999), Olafur Elíasson (2007) and Jeff Koons (2010). It’s the Art Cars 40th anniversary, so a jury of distinguished museum directors and curators chose two internationally renowned artists to design one car each. They chose Chinese artist Cao Fei (*1978) and American artist John Baldessari (*1931) and they will be the youngest and the oldest artist represented in the collection. The newly-designed vehicles will then be presented in museums in 2017, while also having to prove themselves on the racetrack. 
“I’m thrilled to be able to join the magnificent list of BMW Art Car artists. Acceleration, a concept that reminds me of my desire for speed as a runner during the Young Pioneers days, is deeply connected to the entangled contemporary relationships between velocity, energy, and the country” Said Cao Fei
John Baldessari had the following to say. “I was honored to have many of my respected peers recommend me as a BMW Art Car artist. Creating art that exists outside of a museum is important to me, and should be a goal for all artists. This will definitely be my fastest artwork yet.”
The BMW Art Car Collection
Since 1975 artists from the world over have been creating Art Cars on the basis of contemporary BMW automobiles. The collection was inaugurated when French race car driver and art aficionado Hervé Poulain in collaboration with the then BMW Motorsport Director Jochen Neerpasch asked his artist friend Alexander Calder to design a car. The result was a BMW 3.0 CSL, which in 1975 was raced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and became an instant favourite with the spectators: the BMW Art Car Collection was born. In 2010, the most recent addition to the series, a car designed by Jeff Koons, was introduced at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. BMW Art Cars are not only on display in their home town at BMW’s museum in Munich, they also travel internationally to exhibitions and museums in Asia, Europe and North America. 2014 saw the first comprehensive publication on the collection. For further information, please go to http://bit.ly/1JSDssV
