{"id":69177,"date":"2026-08-08T21:53:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T21:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/69177\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T21:53:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T21:53:26","slug":"inside-bmws-2026-art-cars-exhibition-in-munich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/69177\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside BMW’s 2026 Art Cars Exhibition in Munich"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMost autophiles welcome a bit of public gawping at the vehicle they\u2019re driving at the traffic lights. But would they welcome the stares driving the wheels shown off at BMW<\/a>\u2018s latest Art Cars<\/a> exhibition would attract? <\/p>\n

\n\tThe idea of an art car dates back to the 1960s, when Janis Joplin and John Lennon transformed their Porsche 356 and Rolls-Royce Phantom V, respectively, with vividly psychedelic paintwork.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe concept gained wider prominence in 1975 when French racing driver and auctioneer Herv\u00e9 Poulain invited his friend, the American sculptor Alexander Calder, to decorate the BMW 3.0 CSL he would drive in that year\u2019s 24 Hours of Le Mans. Calder\u2019s bold application of primary colors went down so well, BMW turned it into what is now their ongoing, much celebrated Art Car program, which has since seen the likes of Jenny Holzer, Julie Mehretu<\/a>, Jeff Koons, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol bring their distinctive visual language to the marque\u2019s shells.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAndy Warhol\u2019s Art Car.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe second BMW Art Car, created by Lichtenstein in 1977, was based on a BMW 320i Group 5 racing car, with the artist using dots and speed lines reminiscent of his own comic strip-style. Two years later, Warhol transformed a BMW M1 Group 4 racing car<\/a>, applying vivid colors and sweeping brushstrokes in acrylic paint directly onto the bodywork.<\/p>\n

\n\tOther notable creations include Hockney\u2019s playful take on an x-ray effect in a 1995 BMW 850 CSi, and Holzer\u2019s 1999 BMW V12 LMR, which featured her trademark text-based artwork applied to the Le Mans prototype that had won the race that same year.<\/p>\n

\n\tRunning from July 29 to August 31 at the BMW Welt in Munich<\/a>, the exhibition will present all 20 Art Cars together in one location for the first time. As well as the above offerings from modern art luminaries, another particular highlight is Olafur Eliasson\u2019s \u201cBMW H2R Project.\u201d Instead of painting an existing vehicle, Eliasson shrouded a hydrogen-powered racing car in steel mesh, mirror-coated stainless steel and several layers (thousands of liters) of ice\u2014a nod to the relationship between car design and climate change.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe exhibition marks the culmination of the BMW Art Car World Tour, which has, since March 2025, been celebrating the 50th anniversary of the BMW Art Car Collection in more than 30 countries.<\/p>\n

\n\tClick here<\/a> to see more photos of the BMW Art Car exhibition.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most autophiles welcome a bit of public gawping at the vehicle they\u2019re driving at the traffic lights. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20955],"tags":[6213,22326,1297],"class_list":["post-69177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bmw","tag-bmw","tag-feature","tag-munich"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}