19th BMW Art Car By John Baldessari Features A Self-Portrait (Of The Car)

BMW has been making what it calls Art Cars for a long time now and the art car this time around is an actual race car that will be fielded at the Rolex 24 at Daytona. The artist who designed the livery for the car is John Baldessari. The car itself is a BMW M6 GTLM and the livery is interesting.

It's very simple with a big red dot on the roof, that reminds me of the Japanese flag. The hood gets a big yellow sticker between the vents and the front fog light areas get a red or green dot. It reminds me of the flags you might see on the track, which may be what the artist was going for.

Things get strange when you see the doors. Just in case anyone watching wonders, the artist put large letters spelling out "FAST" on the drivers door so passersby will know the car is indeed quick. Things got really interesting on the passenger side of the car. The artist put a picture of the racecar on that side sans any livery.

I think it's sort of like the before picture you might see after someone gets terrible face tattoos and you wonder exactly what they were thinking. I do think Xzibit would be proud, he put a BMW on your BMW dawg. Curious livery aside, the racecar is an absoulte beast weighing in at under 1250kg and packing up to 585hp. It will be cool to see the car run at the track.

"I have done only one work in my life involving a car before, and that was an image of a car. So for the BMW Art Car project, I entered uncharted territory, not just in terms of the subject, but also moving from two- to three-dimensional art. A challenge I did enjoy! The ideas all came at once: for instance, the red dot on the roof, so you can see it from above, FAST on one side and a picture of the car on the other side. I like the ambiguity, having two-dimension and three-dimension at the same time. Considering the car as an icon of contemporary life, my concept turned out playfully satirical, but it also highlights some of the trademark ideas that I use. So you can say, the BMW Art Car is definitely a typical Baldessari and the fastest artwork I ever created!" – John Baldessari

SOURCE: BMW