first BMW art car designed by a chinese artist to debut in 2017

cao fei — the first chinese artist to design a BMW art car — is set to debut her interpretation of a BMW M6 race car in spring 2017. the commission was announced by a jury of distinguished museum directors and curators, who chose fei to design art car #18 and american artist john baldessari to create the 19th edition.

the beijing-based artist has been greatly influenced by the high speed of racing cars. while fei has never owned a car and does not know how to drive, she has developed a strong fascination in the notion of speed. with this in mind, fei drew a comparison between this pace, and the acceleration of cultural changes taking place in china — both industrially and societally. blending these ideas, the artist will use the BMW art car installation to interpret contemporary circumstances, like the emergence of autonomous cars, and the rise of virtual reality.

a wall of visual insight into the themes of cao fei’s art car #18

fei’s close collaboration with BMW on the project has given her a unique insight into the automotive industry. ahead of the project’s reveal, fei has been conducting extensive research at the BMW plants in shenyang, tiexi, and munich, closely observing the vehicle production process. the artist was allowed a firsthand taste of the company’s state-of-the-art technologies, including human-machine interaction, virtual reality and artificial intelligence — tools already beginning to influence the early stages of auto design. 

fei was also given a comprehensive overview of the modern auto manufacturing process and witnessed the making of BMW’s latest engine. these experiences, and the investigation of otherwise unfamiliar procedures and processes, became a major source of influence for the artist, particularly when thinking about her work for the BMW art car.

cao fei in the BMW vision next 100 in beijing | image © the artist, cao fei studio

born in guangzhou and now based in beijing, fei is considered one of the most important young artists to have emerged from china. blending social commentary, popular aesthetics, references to surrealism, and documentary conventions, her films and installations reflect on the experiences of young chinese citizens as they navigate the rapid and chaotic changes in society today.

still from ‘whose utopia?’, 2006 | image © cao fei 

some of fei’s best known works include ‘whose utopia?’ — a 2006 color video currently on display at tate liverpool. the twenty minute film is set in a chinese light bulb factory, and begins with close-ups of components being assembled by automated machines. surrounding scenes show people working very quickly at workstations. the second part of the film follows a group of people dancing and playing electric guitars inside the factory, while the final chapter shows individuals facing the camera and standing or sitting completely still. the film’s focus on factory laborers and its title ‘whose utopia?’ questions who benefits from the rapid economic progress in early twenty-first century china. 

RMB city – a second life city planning (2007) | image courtesy of MoMA PS 1

for ‘RMB city’, fei worked through an avatar named china tracy, spending years developing a virtual city in an online role-playing game. the urban landscape is seen as a condensed incarnation of contemporary chinese cities, ‘a series of new chinese fantasy realms that are highly self-contradictory, inter-permeative, pan-political, extremely entertaining, and laden with irony and suspicion,’ fei describes. 

a hybrid of communism, socialism and capitalism, ‘RMB city’ combines symbols of reality in china with images of the country’s proposed future. the result is a multifaceted virtual playground of floating architectural icons, aerial shopping malls, and panda bears.

another of fei’s most important and more recent works is ‘haze and fog’, a 2013 zombie-style movie set in modern china. the video follows the ‘walking dead’ — people with something dead not only inside their brain, but also in their soul. with a focus on middle class people, the characters in ‘haze and fog’ are symbolic of traditional and modern china. moving from historic housing areas to international modern zones for new immigrants, viewers see people whose daily rituals have changed and traditions have been lost.

still from ‘haze and fog’, 2013 | image © cao fei

still from ‘haze and fog’, 2013 | image © cao fei

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