The collection began in 1975 when French racing driver Hervé Poulain commissioned his friend Calder to paint his BMW 3.0 CSL (above). Below: BMW 3.0 CSL painted by Frank Stella, 1976.The Art Cars have been displayed around the world and are on permanent display at the BMW museum in Munich, Germany.

BMW 3.0 CSL painted by Frank Stella, 1976.

In the first years of the project, primarily racing cars were transformed into art objects – some of these even started in the famous 24-hour Le Mans race. Later the Art Car collection was extended to include series vehicles. In 1999 the American conceptual artist Jenny Holzer created the 15th BMW Art Car – she ‘described’ a BMW V12 Le Mans racing car with her word-art, calling her artwork ‘Truisms’.

BMW M1 group 4 racing version painted by Andy Warhol, 1979.

BMW M3 group A racing version painted by Ken Done, 1989.

BMW Z1 painted by A.R Penck, 1991.

Established in 1975, the BMW Art Car Collection now includes 16 works by prominent artists – including David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Roy Litchenstein, Frank Stella, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol – each making a unique artistic statement about the appearance and meaning of cars in our time. The Art Cars reflect the cultural and historical development of art, design and technology.It was the French racing driver Hervé Poulain who first commissioned an artist – his friend Alexander Calder – to paint his BMW racecar in the early 1970’s and this was the spark that led BMW to develop the Art Car program.

In April 2005, BMW selected Eliasson for its 16th Art Car commission, with input from an international board of curators comprising Bruce W. Ferguson, dean of Columbia University in New York; Pi Li from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Peking; Suzanne Pagé, director of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Francisco; Donna de Salvo, chief curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; and Carla Schulz-Hoffmann, assistant head curator of the Bavarian State Picture Collections.