<\/p>\n
\n\tDOHA: BMW\u2019s long-running Art Car initiative took center stage at the inaugural Art Basel Qatar, with Thomas Girst, BMW Group\u2019s head of cultural engagement, reflecting on five decades of collaboration between artists, engineers and the automobile.<\/p>\n
\n\tSpeaking at the fair, Girst situated the Art Car program within BMW\u2019s broader cultural engagement, which he said spanned \u201cover 50 years and hundreds of initiatives,\u201d ranging from museums and orchestras to long-term partnerships with major art platforms.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cEvery time Art Basel moves \u2014 from Miami to Hong Kong to Qatar \u2014 we move along with them,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019re here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe occasion also marked the 50th anniversary of the BMW Art Car series, which began in 1975 with Alexander Calder\u2019s painted BMW 3.0 CSL. Since then, the project has grown into a global collection that brings together motorsport, engineering, design and contemporary art. \u201cThose Art Cars speak to a lot of people at the intersection of motorsports, technology, racing engineering, arts, lifestyle and design,\u201d Girst said.<\/p>\n
\n\tFor Girst, the relationship between art and the automobile has deep historical roots. He pointed to early modernist fascination with cars, noting that \u201csince the inception of the automobile,\u201d artists have seen it as both a subject and a symbol of modernity. \u201cThere\u2019s a reason for arts and culture and cars to mix and mingle,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n\tAt Art Basel Qatar, visitors were invited to view David Hockney\u2019s BMW Art Car \u2014 Art Car No. 14 \u2014 displayed nearby. Girst described the work as emblematic of the program\u2019s ethos, highlighting how Hockney painted not just the exterior of the vehicle but also visualized its inner life. The result, he suggested, is a car that reflects both movement and perception, turning the act of driving into an artistic experience.<\/p>\n
\n\tCentral to BMW\u2019s approach, Girst stressed, is the principle of absolute artistic freedom. \u201cWhenever we work with artists, it\u2019s so important that they have absolute creative freedom to do whatever it is they want to do,\u201d he said. That freedom, he added, mirrors the conditions BMW\u2019s own engineers and designers need \u201cto come up with the greatest answers of mobility for today and tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Art Car World Tour, which accompanies the anniversary celebrations, has already traveled to 40 countries, underscoring the project\u2019s global reach. For Girst, however, the enduring value of the initiative lies less in scale than in its spirit of collaboration. Art, design and technology, he said, offer a way to connect across disciplines and borders.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s what makes us human. We can do better things than just bash our heads in \u2014 we can create great things together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.arabnews.pk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DOHA: BMW\u2019s long-running Art Car initiative took center stage at the inaugural Art Basel Qatar, with Thomas Girst, BMW Group\u2019s head of cultural engagement, reflecting on five decades of collaboration between artists, engineers and the automobile.
Speaking at the fair, Girst situated the Art Car program within BMW\u2019s broader cultural engagement, which he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2274207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2274206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Fridge-brings-back-to-back-music-events-to-Riyadh.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2274206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2274206"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2274206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2274208,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2274206\/revisions\/2274208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2274207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2274206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2274206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2274206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}