When French auctioneer and racecar driver Herve Poulain asked his buddy, American sculptor Alexander Calder, to design the BMW 3.0 CSL he would be driving at the Le Mans 24-hour race, he sparked a trend that carried on through the decades. After Calder watched Poulain cross the finish line in his customized car, BMW began to commission the glitterati of the art world to leave their mark on automobiles representative of their era.
In the years that followed, modern art luminaries such as Robert Rauschenberg and David Hockney partnered with BMW to produce one-of-a-kind, visual tours de force on various racing sports cars. These radical collaborations yielded cult followings over the years, among motor sports fanatics and art aficionados alike. To date, there are 15 BMW Art Cars in existence (with artists hailing from nine different countries), each a symbol of revolutionary design and engineered precision. This collection continues to tour the world, having regular exhibits at the Louvre in Paris, the Royal Academy in London, the New York Whitney Museum of Modern Art, the Palazzo Grassi in Venice and the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao. The cars on display in the Ayala Museum are part of this prestigious collection, embodying the perfect amalgamation of design and technology in four moving masterpieces.
The BMW 3.0 CSL was the first commissioned Art Car after Calder’s crossed the finish line. This model was designed in 1976 by American minimalist painter and printmaker, Frank Stella. Stella made a name for himself in the ’60s with his colorful, geometric style, which later drastically evolved to the graffiti-inspired pieces he began to produce in the ’70s. Designing the 3.0 CSL saw Stella abandon his post-abstract style and instead focus his design on the technical aura of the sports coupe. The artist ran a black and white grid pattern over the entire body of the car to accentuate the dimensions with which it was built. Stella, an avid fan of racing, saw his creation, the first official BMW Art Car, debut at the 24-hour Le Mans race. Unfortunately due to technical difficulties, the car did not achieve a placing.
The BMW 320i was the Art Car to follow Stella’s in the year 1977, this time employing the father of pop art, Roy Lichtenstein. Famous for his large-scale Americana pieces and his use of "Benday Dots" in nearly every piece, Lichtenstein’s overt caricatures of commercialized society (taken directly from comic strips and print advertisements) often raised the eyebrows of critics in the art world, who deemed his work "flat" and "static." Nonetheless, this very style that fueled the pop art movement and put Lichtenstein in the art history books was the style the artist chose to apply to his design of the 320i. "I wanted the painted lines to be a depiction of the road, showing the car where to go," said the artist. "The design also shows the countryside through which the car has traveled. One could call it an enumeration of everything a car experiences  only that this car reflects all of these things before actually having been on a road."
When the time came for BMW to commission someone to design the M1, the company decided to tap the outrageous pop art superstar, Andy Warhol. During the ’60s, Warhol decided to quit his job as an advertising illustrator and quickly rose to fame as one of the most famous modern artists of all time. His pieces revealed a strange fascination with commonplace, mass-produced items such as soup cans and soda bottles. Conversely, Warhol also mass-produced his art and founded the "Factory," a studio wherein he worked at a dizzying pace to screen-print iconic figures of the era into Technicolor masterpieces. Warhol painted the M1 at the same pace and finished in under an hour. "I have tried to give a vivid depiction of speed," he said. "If a car is really fast, all contours and colors are blurred." At the Le Mans 24-hour race in 1979, Warhol’s M1 achieved a sixth place in overall rating and second place in its class.
In 1989, BMW commissioned famed Australian artist Ken Done to add his personal touch to the M3. The patriotic artist designed the Sydney 200 Olympics logo and has his own design brand called "Done Design," which features various Australian landmarks in warm, vibrant colors. From the moment he saw the car, Done had a very clear vision as to how he was going to visually render its incredible speed. The artist decided to draw on a uniquely Australian theme and chose to use the exotic colors of parrots and the parrot fish, which he thought shared two obvious characteristics with the M3: beauty and speed. Racecar diver Jim Richards won in group A of the Australian Drivers’ Championship in 1987 with Done’s M3.
These four Art Cars are currently on their Asia-Pacific world tour and will be showcased at the Ayala Museum till the end of the month. After their stint in Manila, these "rolling sculptures" are headed to Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India.
While you’re at the Ayala Museum, you might want to check out their new exhibit about the Chinese influence on visual culture, "Chinese Diaspora: Art Streams from the Mainland." Wisdom and wisecracks are always welcome at whippersnappergir@hotmail.com.