BMW Art Car World Tour Kicks Off In Kuala Lumpur

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 14 (Bernama) - The BMW Group is exhibiting four of the 15 BMW Art Cars at the Petronas Gallery, KLCC, here to mark the beginning of the world tour of its unique and rare BMW Art Car Collection.

The exhibition, from Sept 15 to Oct 22, 2006, will feature the works of well-known artists with the BMW 3.0CSL designed by Frank Stella, the BMW 320i by Roy Lichtenstein, the BMW M1 by Andy Warhol and the BMW M3 by Ken Done.

Admission is free.

"We choose to start the tour with Kuala Lumpur as in Europe we see the capital as a modern city with high appreciation for pop art culture combined with the availability of a world-class gallery" said BMW Group's corporate communications director Richard Gaul here Thursday.

Speaking at the launch of the exhibition, Gaul said the BMW Art Car World Tour would take the "rolling sculptures" to Singapore, the Philippines, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, India, Taiwan, China, Russia, Turkey, the United States and Europe.

The Art Cars are displayed worldwide in prominent museums such as the Paris Louvre, the Royal Academy in London, the New York Whitney Museum of Modern Art, Venice's Palazzo Grassi, Sydney's Powerhouse Museum and the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao.

The cars, which reflect the developments in art history with regard to fine art, design and technology, are celebrating their 31st anniversary this year.

The initial idea of the collection was a product of the imagination of Herve Poulain, a passionate French racing car driver and auctioneer, to allow artists to turn cars into works of art.

In 1975, he commissioned his American artist friend, Alexander Calder, to paint his BMW 3.0 CSL racing car.

The car later took part in the 24-hour Le Mans race, in what became the first vehicle to bring together the worlds of art and motor sport.

The enthusiastic reception of the rolling work of art led BMW to create the Art Car Collection.

In the first few years, racing cars were turned into objets d'art, all of which participated in the traditional 24-hour Le Mans race.

Later, the spectrum of cars were broadened to include series vehicles.

-- BERNAMA