THE 16TH BMW ART CAR - ARTIST OLAFUR ELIASSON TO TRANSFORM THE RECORD-SETTING HYDROGEN-POWERED BMW H2R INTO A MOBILE WORK OF ART

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THE 16TH BMW ART CAR - ARTIST OLAFUR ELIASSON TO TRANSFORM THE RECORD-SETTING HYDROGEN-POWERED BMW H2R INTO A MOBILE WORK OF ART
By BMW Group Press
Oct 25, 2005, 06:52 PST

Woodcliff Lake, NJ - August 30, 2005... Olafur Eliasson, one of the most significant representatives of contemporary art, has been commissioned to design the 16th BMW Art Car. In 2005, this internationally unique collection comprising to date a total of fifteen BMW automobiles designed by famous male and female artists, will be celebrating its 30th anniversary. With this assignment, Eliasson has taken on the challenge of transforming a technological milestone, the BMW H2R, with which the BMW Group is pursuing its vision of sustained mobility based on the regenerative production of hydrogen as a fuel of the future. With this installment, BMW continues its innovative cooperation with international artists working in the field of technology, mobility and art.

The choice of artist
The artist, Olafur Eliasson, was selected by an international committee of curators which met in April 2005 to discuss the future of the BMW Art Car Collection. The committee included:

Bruce W. Ferguson
Dean, Columbia University School of the Arts in New York, Pi Li from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Peking

Suzanne Pagé
Director, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

Larry Rinder
Dean, California College of the Arts in San Francisco

Donna de Salvo
Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art

Prof. Dr. Carla Schulz-Hoffmann
Director, Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich
Statements made by the committee of curators
Larry Rinder
Dean, California College of the Arts, San Francisco
Former Curator of the Whitney Museum of Art, New York

"I cannot imagine a better artist for BMW's remarkable hydrogen-powered Art Car than Olafur Eliasson whose work celebrates so gracefully the beauty and wonder of physical phenomenon."

Donna De Salvo
Senior Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Former Senior Curator, Tate Modern, London

"BMW has had a long tradition of working with artists through its Art Car Collection. In selecting an artist to take on the 16th car in the series - the H2R hydrogen car, the committee was presented with a very particular challenge as well as an opportunity. By utilizing regenerative energies - water, sunlight, and oxygen, instead of fossil fuel, the car proposes a new paradigm for the future; with massive implications on the environment and everyday life. Olafur Eliasson has created an extraordinary and internationally recognized body of work that employs the most elemental of materials, including light, heat, and water, as part of an ongoing investigation of human perception in relation to nature and technology, the organic and the industrial. This made him the perfect choice for the project. His profound understanding of, yet willingness to challenge, prevailing scientific and social thinking will inevitably result in an exceptional project, and one that adds a new chapter to the history of the Art Car Collection."

Bruce W. Ferguson
Dean, Columbia University School of the Arts

"BMW and Olafur Eliasson are a marriage made in heaven. Both are interested in the real issues of design and participatory audiences within an environment of progressive practice. Just as BMW is concerned with the future of emissions and alternative fuel sources, Olafur is concerned with a politics of consciousness and conscientiousness within an aesthetic realm. I am pleased to have had a part in bringing them together and look forward to the collaborative results."

Prof. Dr. Carla Schulz-Hoffmann
Director, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich

"I'm extremely pleased that Olafur Eliasson will be the artist for the BMW Art Car. The choice could not have been more poignant regarding this innovative hydrogen automobile. Eliasson focused throughout his highly acclaimed career on the idea of combining the artistic possibilities of light and technology with a deep understanding of nature and its pureness. His installations reflect phenomena of ecology, sustainability and the possibility of their linking with new technical developments. Thus his concept for the BMW Art Car promises to capture its revolutionary synthesis between high technology, speed, beauty of form and in particular energy sustainability in a congenial response."

Suzanne Pagé
Director, Museé National d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

"At the crossing of visual arts, architecture, urbanism and design, Olafur Eliasson is exemplary of an artist of the 21st century. Refusing to be locked in by institutions, he opens himself to the entire world and creates with romanticism a new relation with life. Today, through the medium of the car, he participates in the acceleration of a space of time, he reinvents."

The artist
Thanks to his affinity to the field of renewable energies, Olafur Eliasson is an artist capable of meeting the challenges posed by the record-setting vehicle in a creative way. Born in 1967, the Icelander now lives and works in Berlin. Olafur Eliasson's predominantly sculptural, installative and photographic work is consistently devoted to the complex of topics pertaining to civilization/technology and nature. When creating his works of art, Eliasson combines complex technology with the ephemeral elements of nature, thereby provoking a conflict between the viewer and the environment. As a result of large-scale exhibitions of his work held at museums such as the ZKM in Karlsruhe, the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and the Tate Modern in London, as well as his participation in the 50th Biennale di Venezia 2003, he has become highly esteemed in the international art world. During 2004, his works were exhibited at the Wolfsburg Art Museum and the Menil Collection in Houston.

His works are to be found in world-famous public and private collections such as the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

As an artist involved in the design of the 16th BMW Art Car, Eliasson will be closely collaborating not only with a number of different departments within the company assigned to the field of research, development and design, but also with the Cultural Communications Department. Eliasson himself describes this unique form of collaboration as follows:

"A laboratorial process to research the spectrum of sustainable energy and energy awareness, with a particular interest in hydrogen as a potential future energy-source. This is within the context of my current work that engages with the whole complex of the individual's relation towards mobility, time and space."

After the transportation of the BMW H2R to Eliasson's studio in August of this year, the artist will be occupied until March 2006 with the design of the new Art Car. The new BMW H2R Art Car will then be presented to the public as a work of art at museums throughout the world.

The BMW Art Car Collection
Outstanding male and female artists from around the world began to work on BMW automobiles of their time as early as 1975. The 15 exhibits that make up the BMW Art Car Collection include works by Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, A.R. Penck, David Hockney and Jenny Holzer, among others. The Art Cars reflect the cultural-historical development of art, design and technology and have been exhibited at museums around the world, including the Louvre in Paris, the Royal Academy in London, the Whitney Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and at the Guggenheim museums in New York and Bilbao. BMW Art Cars will also continue to document the fascinating symbiosis of art and technology at future international exhibitions. The entire BMW Art Car Collection will be shown at various museums worldwide within the framework of the 2005/2006 "Auto-nom" exhibition.

The initial idea for the collection, which was to have an automobile redesigned by an artist, was introduced by Hervé Poulain, an auctioneer and ardent racing driver from France. It was upon his initiative that his American friend, renowned artist Alexander Calder, transformed his BMW racing car - a BMW 3.0 CSL - in 1975. The first vehicle to establish a symbiosis between the world of art and the world of motorsport later participated in the 24-hour race at Le Mans. Prompted by enormous enthusiasm for this work of art on wheels, BMW then decided to put its brilliant idea of establishing the Art Car Collection into practice. In the early years, only racing cars that had taken part in the renowned 24-hour race at Le Mans were included. Later, production cars were added to the spectrum. The final work of the series to date was completed by the American concept artist Jenny Holzer, who covered the surface of a BMW V12 Le Mans racing car with her word art known as "truisms."

The BMW H2R hydrogen-powered record holder
With the hydrogen-powered BMW H2R as their latest Art Car, the BMW Group is continuing in the true tradition of the BMW Art Car Collection. The BMW H2R research vehicle has established nine records for hydrogen-powered vehicles featuring a combustion engine. On the high-speed track at Miramas (France) the company proved that hydrogen can replace conventional fuels, without the driver having to forego the driving dynamics offered by modern cars.

The technical specifications of the H2R are verification of this. The twelve-cylinder, six-liter engine delivers more than 210 kW/285 bhp. With such power, the prototype accelerates from 0-62 mph in around six seconds, achieving a top speed of over 300 km/h (186 mph). The hydrogen combustion engine is based on the gasoline-powered engine featured in the BMW 760i. It is equipped with state-of-the-art technologies such as Valvetronic fully variable valve control.

BMW Group Cultural Communications
When the BMW Group becomes culturally involved, it is committed to absolute freedom of creative potential, this being equally as essential for the creation of ground-breaking works of art as it is for the most significant innovations vital to a successful business enterprise. With this principle in mind, the BMW Group regards the development and realization of cultural projects in collaboration with private and public institutions as a future-oriented way of supporting networks within the cultural scene. This in turn facilitates the provision of platforms for new tendencies within the field of art and access by a broad public to artistic and cultural events, with BMW Cultural Communications focusing on the promotion of convincing and thematically stimulating projects.

Culture speaks many languages. In each country it is both unique and distinctive - two qualities of the BMW Group. Through its obligation to art and culture, it aims to support those activities that promote an intercultural dialogue, and is currently involved in more than 100 various cultural events, programs and organizations worldwide.