At 39, Cao Fei is the youngest artist ever to create a BMW Art Car, so it stands to reason that her Art Car #18 would blend multiple forms of media. Known also for questioning the lines separating mental, physical, and digital existence, Fei used a BMW M6 GT3 race car as an element in a virtual artistic experience.
Based in Beijing and born in Guangzhou, Fei is the first Chinese artist to work on a BMW Art Car. Educated at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Fei has had works in the MoMA PS1 and Guggenheim museums in New York City, the Tate Modern in London, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. During the three years it took to create her work, Fei went to a racing event in Switzerland and interacted with driver Cyndie Allemann, took a tour of the BMW plant in Tiexi, China, visited BMW headquarters, and worked with BMW engineers and designers for educational and inspirational purposes.
The BMW M6 GT3 racer follows last year’s M6 GTLM exhibit. The car, although a piece of art in itself, is dressed in bare matte carbon that acts as a blank canvas and can easily be incorporated into a colorful virtual world. The other two components of the display are video about a “time-traveling spiritual practitioner and an augmented reality full of rainbow lights” that can be seen through an app for iPhone or iPad.
?To me, light represents thoughts,” Fei said. “As the speed of thoughts cannot be measured, the #18 Art Car questions the existence of the bound...