Currently, the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich presents “Your mobile expectations: BMW H2R project” by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson (born 1967). Olafur Eliasson was commissioned by the car company BMW to design the 16th BMW Art Car. What sets Eliasson’s “car” apart from previous Art Cars is that it is not recognizable as a car anymore. Olafur Eliasson has removed the outer covering of the BMW H2R racing car and replaced it with a complex skin of metal spanning the body of the car. This shape is covered with ice.
In this video, Thomas Girst, Spokesperson Cultural Communications of BMW Group tells us about the history of the BMW Art Cars and the collaboration with Olafur Eliasson and the curators of the show, Dr. Corinna Rösner (Chief Curator of Die Neue Sammlung – State Museum of Applied Arts and Design) and Dr. Bernhard Schwenk (Chief Curator Contemporary Art, Pinakothek der Moderne) talk about Olafur Eliasson’s project, the collaboration between their houses and the relationship between art and design.
Olafur Eliasson – Your mobile expectations: BMW H2R project, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich. Preview, May 27, 2008. The exhibition runs until 20th July 2008.
PS: A comprehensive survey of Olafur Eliasson’s work is currently on view at MoMA and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York (Olafur Eliasson: Take your time, runs until 30th June, 2008).
PPS: Recommended books: Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson, Studio Olafur Eliasson: An Encyclopedia (Extra Large Series), Your mobile expectations: BMW H2R project

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Some technical information: To create and conserve the car’s ice coating, the vehicle is stored in a refrigeration chamber. Over a period of several days Eliasson had the car’s exposed frame sprayed with some 2000 litres of water to gradually produce the layers of ice. What has emerged from this process is an artwork approximately 1.5 m high, 5.25 m long and 2.5 m wide. Illuminated from within, it radiates an icy atmosphere.

For the current exhibition entitled “Art Machines Machine Art“, the Museum Tinguely in Basel, Switzerland, turns into a production hall. “Art Machines Machine Art” presents Jean Tinguely’s drawing machines dating back to the 1950s followed by art machines down to the present day, created by Pawel Althamer (Extrusion Machine), Michael Beutler (Proper en Droog), Angela Bulloch, Olafur Eliasson (The endless study), Tue Greenfort (Mobile Trinkglaswerkstatt), Damien Hirst (Making beautiful drawings), Rebecca Horn, Jon Kessler (Desert), Tim Lewis (Auto-Dali Prosthetic), Lia, Miltos Manetas, Roxy Paine, Steven Pippin, Cornelia Sollfrank, Jean Tinguely, Antoine Zgraggen, Andreas Zybach (Sich selbst reproduzierender Sockel). All of these machines have a common feature: they produce their own art. Depending on the mechanical process involved, visitors may keep certain works such as drawings produced by Jean Tinguely’s Meta-Matics and certified stamped sheets produced by Damien Hirst’s or Olafur Eliasson’s machines.
Museum Tinguely, Basel / Switzerland, March 17, 2008.

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Jean Tinguely (1925-1991) who grew up in Basel and belonged to the Parisian avant-garde in the 1950s and 60s, stimulated and revolutionised the “static” art world with his kinetic works. The Museum’s permanent collections present a selection of the artist’s machine sculptures, reliefs and drawings from all the periods of his career. The Museum also offers a varied and lively programme of temporary shows devoted to Tinguely’s fellow artists and contemporaries – Bernhard Luginbühl, Niki de Saint Phalle and Yves Klein – and to his models such as Marcel Duchamp and Kurt Schwitters, as well as to related subjects such as contemporary kinetic art.

Related Articles:

• Art Machines Machine Art / Museum Tinguely / Basel, Switzerland / part 2/2

The exhibition “True North” at Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin explores the legacy of Northern Romantic landscape painting in contemporary video and photography. “True North” presents works by Stan Douglas, Olafur Eliasson, Elger Esser, Thomas Flechtner, Roni Horn, Armin Linke, and Orit Raff. The exhibition includes Stan Douglas’s large-scale video installation, Nutka (1999) and Roni Horn’s series of photographs entitled Pi (1997-98). The works in this show have been drawn largely from the collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. “Unlike their Romantic antecedents, are largely historically and politically self-reflexive, and call into question the notion of a sublime, unchangeable North – a notion visualized most famously in the heroic images of nineteenth-century landscape photography and painting, both in Europe and in North America.” (Press Release, PDF). Curator: Jennifer Blessing, Guggenheim Museum New York. Press preview, February 1, 2008.
PS: More information at db artmag.

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