ICA's ART DRIVE BMW Car Collection

Photographer: Kieron Lee

Take a luxury car. Add world famous artist. What do you get? The ICA BMW Art Drive Exhibition starring 17 conceptually designed cars all under one roof, well 6 roofs, but who's counting?






Racing driver Hervé Poulain asked art friend Alexander Calder to use his creative skills to create a personalised racing car that would eventually compete in famous 24 hour race Le Mans back in 1975. This gave birth to the first BMW Art Car with other artists including Sandro Chia, Ken Done, Ernst Fuchs, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Matazo Kayama, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Esher Mahlangu, Cesar Manrique, M.J Nelson, A.R Penck, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella & Andy Warhol. The collection from 1975 until 2010 and was housed in a off site space in the East End inside of a Shoreditch car park over 6 floors. The underwhelming surroundings of dull grey concrete make the artworks pop out and were presented with a fine simplicity. The understandably heavy security were completely necessary when you consider these were truly stunning cars worth millions upon millions not for the perfectly preserved vehicle but for the 'paint jobs', some of which made by long deceased art superstars of a golden era.




The approaches to the concept varied naturally. Some focusing on design like the modern metallic foil and font based designs based on the concept of Le Mans as an internal monologue by Jenny Holzer. The heavyweights of Pop-Art also make a firm bid for most theft worthy vehicle. Imagine cruising around in personalised BMW M1 super car, hand, brush and finger painted by Warhol himself who takes on the concept of speed as factor that blurs and distorts all shapes and colours surrounding. Lichtenstein uses his famous Ben-Day comic book dots to represent the scenery the car has travelled through, leaving you with one of the most stunning cars in the exhibition if not only for the iconic signature style. National identity and culture are the subject of freestyle tribal patterns of Esther Mahlangu, the first female & also first African artist to take part in the exhibition executing an unplanned approach which in turn looks like one of the more logically presented with colour, spacing and tone obviously a God given gift for the artist.



The abstract selection of cars by Frank Stella, César Manrique and Matazo Kayama seem the most fitting for the subject somehow. Frank Stella redesigning the BMW as a work in progress with graph paper lines giving way to varied contrasted imagery. David Hockney hand painted all the cars internal functions and passengers on the exterior of the car including his beloved dog while Jeff Koons takes on the concept of speed with dizzyingly bright lines rushing over the bodywork. Yet it is the lesser known artists that truly shine here in a truly remarkable collection placed in a natural setting you can really appreciate the battle between the ultra aerodynamic lines of the vehicle versus the creative outbursts of colour and design. You find yourself marvelling not only at the work of the famous artists but also at the unsung engineers who craft luxurious canvases for these titans.

























In order of appearance: Jenny Holzer, Alexander Calder, Matazo Kayama, César Manrique, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, M.J.Nelson, Ken Done, Esther Mahlangu, A.R. Penck, Sandro Chia, Ernst Fuchs, Jeff Koons