BMW

BMW enters the diary through a commission that brought the company’s changing car designs into contact with Andy Warhol’s working methods. The proposed exterior artwork moved from practical experiments on a model to a revised plan for a newer car, though the diary does not confirm that the final painting was completed.

The commission and its precedent

In March 1978, Warhol recorded that BMW wanted him to paint the outside of a car. He noted that other artists had already undertaken such designs, including Roy Lichtenstein, situating the request within an emerging practice of treating the automobile as an art surface rather than merely a vehicle.

The commission required a workable method as well as an image. By early April, Warhol was still searching for a way to apply the design and took advice from David Whitney, who suggested a decorative roller of the kind used to print flower patterns on walls. Warhol visited paint stores to find one; when a store said it could obtain a roller by Monday, he planned to send Ronnie to collect it. The diary’s itemized cab fares—$2.00, $2.15, and $1.60—preserve the small errands behind the high-profile commission.

The model test

Before painting the full-size car, Warhol was filmed working on a model. His initial plan was to roll on a flower pattern in pink and black, but Chris Makos persuaded him to change the colors to yellow and black. The test exposed a material problem: the paint was shiny and slippery, so it would not adhere to the model. In the disorder of the attempt, Warhol rolled paint onto Victor Bockris. The session was judged a failure; Leo Castelli arrived and, according to Warhol’s account, was nearly sick at the mess.

The episode shows the design still being negotiated rather than settled. Its colors changed during preparation, and the decorative roller that promised a quick way to transfer a repeated pattern proved unreliable on the model’s surface. The camera visit made the trial public, but it did not turn the unsuccessful test into a finished design.

A replacement car and a renewed plan

At a later gathering, Leo Castelli told Warhol that BMW was introducing a new car and would not use the design he had made for the old model. The company nevertheless wanted him to go to Paris on June 12 to paint the new car. The shift did not end the proposal; it made the earlier design obsolete and reopened the commission around a different vehicle.

The diary leaves the renewed plan at the point of invitation. It records the proposed trip and the reason for the change, but not the outcome of the Paris project. BMW’s presence in these entries is therefore defined by a commission in progress: a design requested, tested unsuccessfully on a model, displaced by a new car, and followed by an invitation to begin again.