Insight: How BMW’s 20th Art Car Came to Life

Sportscar365 speaks with artist Julie Mehretu about the creative process behind her BMW M Hybrid V8 Art Car...

Paris, May 21, 2024. As a black cloth is lifted off a BMW M Hybrid V8 put on display at the Centre Pompidou and the 20th BMW Art Car is unveiled to the world, it caps off a process six years in the making. 

It was a process that began back when the Munich brand was still active in the FIA World Endurance Championship’s GTE-Pro class. Because it was in 2018, when LMP1 cars still reigned supreme at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, that Julie Mehretu was unanimously selected by a jury to bring her artistic vision to life.

However, as Mehretu freely admits speaking on stage alongside BMW chairman Oliver Zipse, it was an opportunity she initially turned down as she ‘didn’t think she could do it.’

“[I’m a] different kind of artist and the kind of work that I make… I’m working with abstraction and conceptual ideas and politics,” Mehretu explained, speaking to Sportscar365 at the launch.

“And I didn't know how I could do that. I wasn't interested in just painting the car. But when I could see it as a different kind of project, this new lens of thinking about mobility and imagination and play, it became a different thing.”

Mehretu, born in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa but now based in New York and Berlin, cites two further factors that made her change her mind. First, the persuasive power of figures within BMW (particularly Thomas Girst, the brand’s Head of Cultural Engagement) and secondly, the emergence of the COVID-19 global pandemic.

“I started to think while we're sheltered in place, why not take on the Art Car as a project around mobility and how I can really rethink that? And so that was really the opening of that,” Mehretu explained in her speech at the launch.

Now, those paying close attention to the timeline will likely ask themselves one key question. As mentioned, BMW was still racing the M8 GTE when Mehretu was initially selected. 

When the pandemic broke out, the LMDh ruleset to which the M Hybrid V8 would be built was only just announced. It wasn’t until two years later, in the summer of 2022, that the Dallara-chassised car first began testing. So at what point did Mehretu learn that it was going to be this particular car she’d be working on?

“Like around then,” Mehretu said in reference to the M Hybrid V8’s initial rollout. “When they sent me images of the rendering of it before it had been built. First time I saw it was in Daytona last year.”

From that point began an extensive process of bringing her vision to life on the LMDh race car, which Mehretu notes took some time to materialize. “Creativity is not so fast,” she said. “It doesn't happen like [a snap of the fingers].

“When I went to watch the race in Daytona, that's when I got totally exhilarated by this idea of play. When we've dealt with complicated worlds, people love the idea of how to investigate creative play. So that was an interesting space to play in.

“I talked to the designers, I talked to the physicists, I talked to all the people who were involved in it and I was so blown away by that. And then I just had this white car, they sent me a little model, and I would like drive it around the studio and put it in front of different angles, just when it was white.” 

It was at this stage that Mehretu first encountered the practical limitations that come with working on a racing car. “I couldn’t paint the car, you’re not allowed to paint the car because of the weight,” she explained.

“So then I was like, ‘Well, how am I going to do this?’ So I had to work with an existing painting, but I didn't want to just wrap it with a painting. That wasn't interesting to me. And that's when I came up with this idea of a portal.

“The car can just go through the painting and the painting can be this space that it goes through, kind of. It absorbs it, it digests it, it inhales it, it's transformed by it, and then therefore transforms the painting as well.”

Notably, the job of fitting the artwork to the car fell to German firm Race Spirit, the same company that did the wrapping work on the BMW M3 GT2 designed by Jeff Koons in 2010 - coincidentally the last Art Car to compete at Le Mans. There, the car was also fitted with the required graphics, like partner logos, but also the number panels and Hypercar stickers required by regulation.

“I love that, because it’s a race car fundamentally,” said Mehretu, who explained that such stickers were not a factor of consideration during her creative process. “I did what I wanted to do, and then I let them put the stickers wherever they needed to. 

“I was interested in that. And when they first started doing it, they were like, ‘I'm sorry! I was like, ‘No, I love that.’ Because this is a race car. This is not a painting. It is a race car that's like had an experience with the painting.”

That process came with its own challenges, particularly when it came to the M Hybrid V8’s aerodynamic performance window, which Mehretu found “fascinating” as someone who came into the process as a motorsports outsider.

“I love the conversation I had with the aerodynamics physicist, who came through and told me to not put anything on particular areas towards the bottom of the car. I went, ‘I thought your car is already so efficient?’ and he replied, ‘Yes, but we calculate its efficiency.’ So where they have to put something to make it go slower it's calculated, and I found that just fascinating and I loved playing in that space.”

Even as the car was unveiled in Paris in the presence of factory drivers Sheldon van der Linde and Rene Rast, BMW M CEO Franciscus van Meel, motorsport boss Andreas Roos and Team WRT team principal Vincent Vosse, Mehretu exclaimed that the Art Car will only be “finished once the race is over.”

“It hadn't been changed by that different spatial experience and it's done that,” Mehretu said. “It's ready for Le Mans. It’s ready to go and as the drivers get in and out, as the pitstop crew is working on the car, changing tires, as the car gets the debris and the insects coating it, it will completely change.

“The car will then be finished at the end of the race. All of those marks will contribute to the final Art Car.”

That final stage will happen when BMW returns to battle for overall victory at Le Mans for the first time since its first and to date only win in 1999. 

With its unique design, the No. 20 car driven by Van der Linde, Rast and Robin Frijns will unquestionably stand out in the largest top-class entry this century. 

Will it be able to live up to expectations and have a shot at delivering BMW’s second Le Mans win? That is a question that will be answered on June 15-16.

Photos: BMW