Even if you missed the Le Mans Classic, there’s good news: Calder’s car and many others will soon be on display in Belgium. After stops in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Dubai, and Stockholm, the BMW Art Car World Tour – the largest exhibition project in the history of the BMW Art Car Collection – will arrive in Belgium this October. From Alexander Calder’s very first Art Car to Julie Mehretu’s most recent creation, you will have the chance to see 10 Art Cars at once, the greatest gathering of these icons ever assembled.
Text Anja Van Der Borght
Do you remember the images from earlier this summer of French former racing driver and auctioneer Hervé Poulain taking an honorary lap in the Calder BMW Art Car, alongside Alexander S. C. Rower, grandson of artist Alexander Calder? At 84 years old, Poulain radiated pride during the BMW parade at this year’s Le Mans Classic. It wasn’t his first time in an Art Car, nor on the Le Mans circuit, but the event undoubtedly stirred fond memories – such as his conversations in the early 1970s with Jochen Neerpasch, then director of BMW Motorsport.
Of course, even back then, PR and marketing professionals were brainstorming ways to bring their brand into the art world. But the BMW Art Car project didn’t spring from a corporate think tank – it was literally born on the Le Mans circuit. A passionate art lover, Poulain wanted to spark a meeting between fine art and industry, two worlds that largely ignored each other at the time. Neerpasch, equally passionate, embraced the idea wholeheartedly.
It’s remarkable that both men, now in their later years, remain active – and that we owe so much to their legacy.
Once they had reached an agreement, Poulain invited his friend Alexander Calder, the American artist living in France, to paint a BMW. The result was a vividly colourful BMW 3.0 CSL, unmistakably Calder, which competed in the 1975 24 Hours of Le Mans, captivated the public, and marked the beginning of the BMW Art Car Collection. Its explosion of colour was conceived as a symbolic gesture of optimism and confidence in the future, born in response to the pessimism following the first oil crisis.
Since then, major artists such as Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Esther Mahlangu, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, and Ólafur Elíasson have added their unique styles to the collection. More recently, John Baldessari and Cao Fei brought fresh dynamism by entering “their” BMW M6 GTLM and BMW M6 GT3 in races at Daytona (2016) and Macau (2017). The BMW Art Cars of Jeff Koons and Julie Mehretu competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2010 and 2024 respectively.
Today, the official BMW Art Car series numbers twenty vehicles, each created by a different artist, together representing a cross-section of fifty years of art history. Minimalism, pop art, magical realism, abstraction, conceptual art, and digital art – they’re all there.
Even if you missed the Le Mans Classic, there’s good news: Calder’s car and many others will soon be on display in Belgium. After stops in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Dubai, and Stockholm, the BMW Art Car World Tour – the largest exhibition project in the history of the BMW Art Car Collection – will arrive in Belgium this October. From Alexander Calder’s very first Art Car to Julie Mehretu’s most recent creation, visitors will have the chance to see the greatest gathering of these icons ever assembled.
Mark your calendars for the Zoute Grand Prix, October 8–12, 2025 – and prepare to admire these “rolling sculptures” up close.
