automotive

BMW Digitizes Art Car Collection

BMW is partnering with the Acute Art app to digitize its Art Car collection and provide users with an augmented reality experience. 

The cars were carefully scanned from all angles using a photogrammetric methodology, capturing details of the artists’ expression on each car's surface.

The AR experience debuted July 21 with 10 BMW Art Cars available for viewing. An additional BMW Art Car will digitally debut every two weeks until all 19 BMW Art Cars are integrated into the Acute Art app.

The art car collection was initiated by French race car driver and art aficionado Hervé Poulain and conceived in collaboration with the founder of BMW Motorsport, Jochen Neerpasch.

The first BMW Art Car was commissioned when Alexander Calder was asked to design Poulain’s BMW 3.0 CSL race car in 1975, which he would later race at Le Mans. 

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Since then, 18 more artists have gone on to express their own artistic vision using some of BMW’s most iconic models as their canvas. 

Using Acute Art’s VR/AR/mixed reality technology, the digitally reproduced Art Cars can be virtually staged anywhere a user desires in the AR exhibition.

The first wave of BMW Art Cars that can be experienced via the app are: Alexander Calder (BMW 3.0 CSL, 1975), Michael Jagamara Nelson (BMW M3, 1989), Ken Done (BMW M3, 1989), Matazo Kayama (BMW 535i, 1990), Esther Mahlangu (BMW 525i, 1991), Jeff Koons (BMW M3 GT2, 2010) and John Baldessari (BMW M6 GTLM, 2016). 

To fully discover and experience the interactive BMW Art Cars, the Acute Art app is available free of charge on the App Store and Google Play.

The BMW Art Cars are “an essential part of the DNA of BMW’s 50-year-long cultural engagement,” says Pieter Nota, member of the board of management of BMW AG responsible for customer, grands and sales. 

The BMW Group will host an interactive exhibition at Kunstmuseum Basel during the art fair Art Basel in Basel, Switzerland on Sept. 21.

The 1975 BMW 3.0 CSL Art Car by Alexander Calder will be on display both physically and in a specially created augmented reality area where guests can experience all of the digital Art Cars.

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