Jeff Koons and supermodel Karolína Kurková presented the North American premiere of Koons’ BMW Art Car, the M3 GT2 race car on December 4th, the night of the opening day of Art Basel in Miami Beach. Among the guests were Chris Dercon, Director of Tate Modern, the curator of the 8th Berlin Biennale, Juan A. Gaitán, as well as the auctioneer Simon de Pury.
Photo: Donald Bowers/Getty Images for BMW
The unveiling happened in the Miami Beach Botanical Garden where Koons and Mark Spiegler, Director of Art Basel spoke. Jeff Koons’ BMW Art Car will remain on display at Miami Beach Botanical Garden, across the entrance from the South Beach Convention Center at 2000 Convention Center Drive, until December 8, 2013.
At the event, Koons remarked: “I always enjoyed the Art Cars – Warhol’s Car, Roy Lichtenstein’s car, Stella’s, Calder’s – all the cars have always been fantastic. I just wanted to participate. The art world is like a family and I wanted to also be involved in this dialogue of designing an Art Car. Today, I’m proud that this car is there alongside their work, too.”
The BMW Art Car Collection was initiated by Jochen Neerpasch, then Director of BMW Motorsport, as well as French racing driver and auctioneer Hervé Poulain, when the latter invited his friend Alexander Calder to design his BMW Le Mans 24-hour race car in 1975. Since then, some of the greatest names in contemporary art have been added to the collection, such as Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, Robert Rauschenberg, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer and Olafur Eliasson.
Another legendary “rolling sculpture”, created by Andy Warhol, will be on display in Art Basel’s Collectors Lounge. The pop art icon painted a BMW M1 that raced in the 24-hour race at Le Mans in 1979.
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