Classic gets new coat

It has been 40 years since the auto giant BMW invited celebrated artists to paint its cars. Now, Cao Fei gets her chance to join stars like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. Deng Zhangyu reports.

Chinese artist Cao Fei is now on the list of BMW Art Car designers. She is the youngest and the first Chinese artist picked by an international jury of well-known museum directors and curators worldwide.

The 37-year-old artist and 84-year-old American conceptual artist John Baldessari will be the artists for the 18th and 19th BMW Art Cars.

Their names were announced last week at the Guggenheim Museum in New York as BMW marks the 40th anniversary of the start of the art car collection.

Cao and Baldessari are respectively the youngest and the oldest artists in the history of BMW Art Cars.

The first art car was designed by American sculptor Alexander Calder for his friend, racer Herve Poulain, in 1975.

Since then, new additions have been made into the art car collection at irregular intervals by celebrated artists across the world.

Before Cao, top artist Jeff Koons created the 17th BMW Art Car in 2010.

Reacting to her selection, Cao says: "I'm very surprised and shocked. I'm a Chinese and a female."

Cao was recommended by a jury of 12 museum directors and curators including Tate Modern director Chris Dercon and Guggenheim Museum director Richard Armstrong.

"For me, all the other artists are names in my art history book," says Cao, who does multimedia projects including films, videos and installations in Beijing.

Thomas Girst, head of cultural engagement of BMW, says: "To have Cao is an adventure and a risk. But I think it's the time to have a Chinese in the art-car series."

Girst, who has seen Cao's works at the Venice Biennial and Art Basel Hong Kong this year, says he's impressed by Cao's works in different media.

He says that while he can imagine what the art car will be like if it's done by any other artist, with Cao it's not certain and there's room for imagination and expectation.

Cao feels one of the reasons Dercon voted for her was that her works look at what China will be in the future.

Cao rose to fame early.

Before she graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 2001, her works were already being collected by well-known collectors in the West.

Her video works always look into the reality of young Chinese and workers in factories, and explore the boundaries between virtual reality and real society.

Her 2006 short-video work Whose Utopia shows workers' daily lives in factories in southern China where lots of factories make products for foreign brands.

The 20-minute film took half a year and included visits to factories to talk to workers and even work with them.

She has also made films based on an online virtual game The Second Life. RMB City and i. Mirror are based on her experience in the virtual game world - meeting various people and building her own stories.

Guggenheim Museum director Richard Armstrong says: "She is one of the most interesting among young artists. Very brilliant."

He met Cao 10 years ago in Pittsburg.

Then, the 26-year-old artist "was already very good and doing unbelievable work", he says.

He adds that the museum has an appetite for Chinese artists.

They will hold a show in 2017 of work done by China's artists.

It will feature about 15 contemporary artists from China.

He says that New York's recent interest in Chinese artists is due to the world's interest in the nation and also because the art community in China has lots of representative artists.

Cao will have a solo show in New York next year, prior to her first solo show in China.

"I just received an invitation for a solo art show from a museum in New York," says Cao, explaining why she is doing her first solo show outside China.

Ou Zhitu, a longtime friend of the artist, says Cao's works were not seen as art in China a few years ago. People's view of art in China still lags behind perceptions in the West.

As for the BMW Art Car, Cao says she needs time to think about how to present it since there are already 17 great works by star artists.

She says it may not simply be a car, but an installation including videos, photos or more.

Cao adds that she will not use Chinese graphics in the car to stress her cultural background. But she will put the reality of China's society into the work, in keeping with her concepts.

The BMW Art Car - like the previous ones - will be used for a race and later be shown in museums around the world.

As for what BMW Art Car design fans can expect, Cao says: "As a woman designing something for what is largely seen as men's territory, I think I can be more sensitive and direct."