BMW reveals its latest 'Art Car' with contributions from artist Julie Mehretu.
Ethiopian American artist Julie Mehretu, famous for her abstract paintings, was chosen last year to create the latest 'Art Car' for a German car company. Her art, painted onto a BMW M Hybrid V8, was recently revealed at the Pompidou Centre in Paris and is set to race in the 24 Hours of Le Mans competition next month. The BMW M Hybrid V8, both a racing car and a plug-in hybrid, is a low, wide vehicle equipped with a massive rear wing and a big vertical rudder.
To complete the commission - the 20th BMW Art Car - Mehretu decided to use her well-known painting "Everywhen." This is now on display at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City. Like "Everywhen," the car was covered in large areas of color, intersecting with broad black lines.
"In the studio with the model of the BMW M Hybrid V8, I thought: What if this car appeared to go through the painting and became influenced by it?" Mehretu explained in a statement. "I wanted to make a mix, a fusion of the painting. I kept seeing the painting seemingly dripping onto the car."
The first BMW Art Car was painted in 1975 by American sculptor Alexander Calder for French racing driver Hervé Poulain to drive at Le Mans that year. Since then, renowned artists such as Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol have also designed BMWs. In 1991, South African artist Esther Mahlangu was the first woman to create a BMW Art Car with a 525i sedan. In 1996, South African artist Barbara Kruger delivered a BMW Le Mans race car with her provocative slogans like 'Protect Me From What I Want,' and so on.
Mehretu's art often draws inspiration from architecture and bustling urban scenes. Her work showcases complex intersections of lines and shapes, inspired by technical drawings and floor plans, interspersed with bursts of color or deep blackness. She often explores themes such as migration, colonialization, and globalization.
Her art, despite its abstract nature, conveys a sense of humanity and movement that engages emotional responses. From large-scale designs like the 80-foot-long mural in the Goldman Sachs lobby to smaller, more reflective works such as "Mogama (A Painting in 4 Parts)," Mehretu's oeuvre depicts the intricacies of contemporary experiences, the nuances of human behavior, and the complexity of space. Her artwork has been hailed as a dynamic visual exploration of the world around us.
Mehretu is represented by the Marian Goodman Gallery, which describes her work as a "dynamic visual articulation of contemporary experience, a depiction of social behavior and the psychogeography of space." "Mehretu's painting, drawing, and printmaking practices alike affirm the role of art to provoke thought and reflection, and express the contemporary condition of the individual and society," the gallery adds.
Born in 1970 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to an Ethiopian father and an American mother, the family moved to the United States in 1977 to flee from the ravages of a brutal civil war. She earned her Master of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1997 and currently resides in New York. She has received high praise for her work, including a 2005 MacArthur Fellowship and a 2015 US Department of State Medal of Arts Award.
A jury of prominent gallery and museum directors unanimously selected Mehretu for this project. Madeleine Grynsztejn, the Pritzker Director at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, commented on her selection: "Julie's art has long been associated with speed. For years, she has created paintings that capture that quality. So, it seems only natural to have her merge her work with the design of a speeding vehicle - a perfect match."
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Source: edition.cnn.com
