Corporate sponsorship has really cottoned on to the value of art over the past decade. In the eighties the ad agencies learned that 'art knew best' and plundered just about everything it could find to help sell overpriced perfume, cars, even political parties. Still, that didn't wash too well with the public, after a while the novelty wore off as the consumer realised, despite all the beautiful packaging and film photography, the products were as rank as they always were.
Still, Hervé Poulain, an auctioneer and ardent racing driver from France can be forgiven for his love of BMWs, after all if he risked his life driving them he was sure to make a deep emotional connection. Poulain was the first to introduce the dubious concept of mixing motor racing and art with his friend and renowned artist Alexander Calder to paint a rolling canvas on the BMW 3.0 CSL that he raced in the 1975 Le Mans endurance race. Poulain’s 3.0 CSL is proclaimed to be the first car to create a symbiosis between the world of art and the world of motor sport. Since then he's commissioned a wealth of contemporary arts' most prominent figures to pimp his rides. The latest being the self-aggrandising Jeff Koons, who couldn't wait to get his mug on camera for the subject.
Check out his rides…
1977 BMW 320i by Roy Lichtenstein
1979 BMW M1 by Andy Warhol
1995 BMW 850CSI by David Hockney
2010 BMW M3 GT2 by Jeff Koons – currently being exhibited at the Pompidou Centre.
The truth is there are plenty of other car manufacturers trying to get in on the arts these days, take Vauxhall's Art Car Boot Fair which took place in early June at London's Brick Lane Market.
It displayed "Over sixty exciting pitches with regular booters Sir Peter Blake, Gavin Turk, Bob & Roberta Smith and Pam Hogg…"
But if you really want to see my favourite 'art cars' it has to be avant-garde Ant Farm's legendary Cadillac Ranch, which much later inspired the tourist attraction Carhenge.
There's been an art car parade in Britain for the past few years, it's toured the country since 2007, although it seems to have gone a little quiet this year, I guess the price of petrol gave the second thoughts. Although there are plenty more out there including an enormous one in Houston Texas.
I remember going down to Southend-on-Sea as a kid and watching all the pimped up cars rolling buy. To be honest I'm no fan of cars, I don't drive, and until they run on water I doubt I will. Still it's nice to see that something other than scrapping cars and melting them down for metal (after dumping all the rest in a landfill) can be done with these old fossil fuelled beasts. For those who want to defend electric cars, think about it, where does that electricity come from? Nuclear power stations? Coal burning stations? Gas? It's all bad man…
