Thomas Girst : Communicating BMW Art Cars (2009)
Does this unique mix of art, design and publicity offer a blueprint?
artdesigncafé | Creative Business & Entrepreneurship | Published 10 June 2009
Updated 09 January 2011. Co-partner: Sculpture magazine, May 2009 issue. This is an extended version of the excerpts from the interview published in Sculpture, which was shaped by the practicalities of hard copy and word count constraints. These additions are indicated with a grey background.
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Andy Warhol, Art Car (1979). Paint on BMW M1 group 4 racing version. This car was co-driven by Frank Stella during the German Formula 1 Grand Prix during the initial laps before the race.
Marriages of brand-name artistic talent and luxury consumer goods don’t get much better than the partnership showcased on a recent summer day in southern Germany. At the Formula 1 Grand Prix racetrack, racing enthusiast Frank Stella was co-driving a [1979] BMW M1 ProCar hand-painted by Andy Warhol. As spectators watched, Warhol’s Pop artwork accelerated into a colorful blur of speed and sound. For the past five years, Thomas Girst has been in charge of all matters concerning BMW’s Art Car project: guiding the commissioning process, coordinating communications and marketing, and scheduling international exhibitions. Girst studied art history at the University of Hamburg and New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. Later, he worked at a New York gallery specializing in German Expressionism and served as research manager at the nonprofit Art Science Research Laboratory. He has also contributed to German art magazines and national daily newspapers.
The Art Car program began in 1975 with a car painted by Alexander Calder (on view at the Irish Museum of Modern Art through June 21). The collection now includes 16 works by renowned artists, including Stella, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and most recently, Olafur Eliasson. Created as “rolling sculptures,” the Art Cars are based (when not on tour) at the BMW Museum in Munich. Over the years, they have been exhibited at numerous museums and galleries around the world, including the Louvre and the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao. Eliasson’s Art Car (not a decorated racecar, but a non-functional artwork) debuted at Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne in 2007 and was exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art last year. This year, after showings at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and New York’s Grand Central Terminal, an installation of BMW Art Cars by Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Rauschenberg is on a three-city museum tour in Mexico.
The following are excerpts of my conversation with Thomas Girst:
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Jenny Holzer. Art Car, 1999.
R.J. Preece: How did the Art Cars initiative begin?
Thomas Girst: The initial idea came from a French auctioneer named Hervé Poulain, who was also a racetrack driver and very good friends with well-known artists. Poulain asked Alexander Calder to design the exterior of his BMW 3.0 CSL. The car then took part in the 24-hour race in Le Mans. In the ’80s, with the internationalization of the company, our different operating companies in national markets were asking for Art Cars. They were primarily created for individual markets. However, starting with Olafur Eliasson’s car— the 16th in the series— we decided to leave the artist selection to professionals in the art field, including curators from major museums around the world.
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