BMW is to return to Le Mans with a new ‘Art Car’ – the 17th in the series.
The latest creation, by artist Jeff Koons, will use an M3 GT2 racer (part-driven by BMW WTCC legend Andy Priaulx) as a canvas for a digital collage made from stretched photographs of racing cars.
"These race cars are like life, they are powerful and there is a lot of energy," says Koons. "You can participate with it, add to it and let yourself transcend with its energy. There is a lot of power under that hood and I want to let my ideas transcend with the car – it's really to connect with that power."
We’re not quite sure exactly how one goes about transcending with a racing car’s energy, but Mr Koons is an artist, so we’ll let him off.
The latest BMW Art Car marks a return to the project’s racing roots. Although the last Art Car, created in 2007 by Olafur Eliasson, was based on the BMW H2R hydrogen concept and is pictured right (we kid you not), the original Art Cars were all Le Mans racers.
The first Art Car to race at Le Mans was in 1975, created by American artist Alexander Calder. Pre-eminent pop artists Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol also had a bash at an Art Car racer in the 1970s, before the project took a break during the 1980s. The last time an Art Car ran at Le Mans was the 1999 BMW V12 LMR.
Koons’ creation will be unveiled at the Pompidou Centre in Paris on 1 June – as has been the case with every BMW Art Car since the Centre’s creation in 1977 – before heading to Le Mans for the race on 12-13 June.
Andy Priaulx’s arty racer will run with the number 79 in homage to Andy Warhol’s 1979 BMW M1 – which itself ran the number 76 in homage to Frank Stella’s 1976 car.