BMW to Stage Landmark Art Cars Exhibition

The opening ceremony will take place on 28 July. The exhibition within the iconic BMW Welt architecture brings together the “rolling sculptures” from Alexander Calder (1975) to Julie Mehretu (2024). A particular highlight is Olafur Eliasson's “BMW H2R Project”: based on a hydrogen prototype, this piece has only been displayed publicly three times as an installation in a special frozen-down environment since its world premiere in 2007. The exhibition marks the culmination of the BMW Art Car World Tour, which has been celebrating the 50th anniversary of the BMW Art Car Collection with a global exhibition programme in over 30 countries across five continents since March 2025.

“I am delighted that the BMW Art Car World Tour is ending here at BMW Welt. This exhibition enables our international visitors to experience the diversity of artistic approaches and technological developments over the last fifty years first-hand, and it reinforces BMW Welt’s role as a place of encounter,” says Sandra Wittemer, Head of BMW Welt.

Spanning five decades, the retrospective at BMW Welt showcases artistic engagement with art, design, technology, innovation, motor racing and engineering. The BMW Art Car Collection started in 1975, when the French racing driver and art dealer Hervé Poulain collaborated with Jochen Neerpasch, then Head of BMW Motorsport, to invite the artist Alexander Calder to transform a racing car into a work of art. The result was a BMW 3.0 CSL that competed in the 1975 Le Mans 24-hour race and became an instant crowd favourite. Since then, the collection has grown to encompass 20 works, with contributions from renowned artists such as Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Esther Mahlangu, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Jeff Koons, Cao Fei and Julie Mehretu. Each artist has brought their own unique vision and style to the project.

“BMW ART CARS – 20 ARTISTS, 50 YEARS OF INNOVATION. REUNITED AT BMW WELT” brings together all of the “rolling sculptures” for the first time in a public exhibition space. Each Art Car tells the story of its creator's artistic vision, technological developments and the social context of the period in which it was created. The collection therefore also provides a cross-section of art history from the last five decades: Minimalism, Pop Art, Magical Realism, Abstraction, Conceptual Art and Digital Art are all represented.

Artist Julie Mehretu‘s project shows that a BMW Art Car can transcend the concept of the car as an object: She conceived her project on aBMW M Hybrid V8 (BMW Art Car #20, 2024) from the very beginning as multidimensional endeavour, co-founding the African Film and Media Arts Collective (AFMAC) with screenwriter/ film producer Mehret Mandefro. This initiative brought together artists and filmmakers from Africa and the diaspora for workshops led by international lead artists, exploring new forms of artistic practice and cultural dialogue. The final exhibition, “Turning Towards the Sun”, will be presented from 11 December 2026 to 15 August 2027 at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town.

BMW Art Car Collection at BMW Welt.

1. Alexander Calder / BMW 3.0 CSL / 1975
2. Frank Stella / BMW 3.0 CSL / 1976
3. Roy Lichtenstein / BMW 320i Turbo / 1977
4. Andy Warhol / BMW M1 / 1979
5. Ernst Fuchs / BMW 635 CSi / 1982
6. Robert Rauschenberg / BMW 635 CSi / 1986
7. Michael Jagamara Nelson / BMW M3 Group A / 1989
8. Ken Done / BMW M3 Group A / 1989
9. Matazo Kayama / BMW 535i / 1990
10. César Manrique / BMW 730i / 1990
11. A.R. Penck / BMW Z1 / 1991
12. Esther Mahlangu / BMW 525i / 1991
13. Sandro Chia / BMW M3 GTR / 1992
14. David Hockney / BMW 850 CSi / 1995
15. Jenny Holzer / BMW V12 LMR / 1999
16. Olafur Eliasson / BMW H2R / 2007
17. Jeff Koons / BMW M3 GT2 / 2010
18. Cao Fei / BMW M6 GT3 / 2017
19. John Baldessari / BMW M6 GTLM / 2016
20. Julie Mehretu / BMW M Hybrid V8 / 2024

Main Image: Courtesy BMW