BMW Art Cars Visit Estonia 2013

Four BMW Art Cars on Display at Kumu Art Museum through July 28, 2013

April 14, 2013 – As reported by the Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn, Estonia:

The Goethe Institute, in cooperation with the BMW Group and Kumu Art Museum, is bringing four works of art from the extraordinary BMW Art Car Collection to Estonia. Starting on 14 April, within the framework of the German Spring culture month, cars designed by four of the world’s top artists will be on display in the Kumu courtyard and foyer.

The cars from the collection that will come to Tallinn were designed by Roy Lichtenstein, A. R. Penck, David Hockney and Jeff Koons. The BMW Art Cars project was initiated in 1975, when the French auctioneer and race car driver Hervé Poulain succeeded in convincing Alexander Calder to take part in an unprecedented experiment. BMW put a 3.0 CSL race car at the disposal of Calder, and an ambitious symbiosis of art and top-quality design was born, which was revealed to the world at the 24 Hours at Le Mans race.

Since that time, 17 famous artists from around the world have turned BMW cars into works of art: in addition to Calder, the artists include Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Ernst Fuchs, Robert Rauschenberg, Michael Jagamara Nelson, Ken Done, Matazo Kayama, César Manrique, A. R. Penck, Esther Mahlangu, Sandro Chia, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Olafur Eliasson, Robin Rhode and Jeff Koons.

The BMW Art Cars have been exhibited in the world’s most famous museums and galleries, including the Louvre, Guggenheim and Shanghai Art Museum, but it is very seldom that several cars meet up in one place; this most recently occurred during the London Olympic Games.