Warhol's BMW Art Car project

Warhol's BMW Art Car project brought Andy Warhol’s studio practice into contact with a commission for a full-size BMW. The diary follows the work from the initial request, through an improvised and publicly filmed test on a model, to a change in the car and a new invitation to paint it in Paris. Its central episode is not a completed artwork but a process repeatedly redirected by the materials, the camera, and BMW’s changing plans.

Commission and changing brief

On March 23, 1978, Warhol recorded that BMW wanted him to paint the outside of a car, noting that Stella and Roy Lichtenstein had already done similar work. The commission was therefore presented as part of an existing artistic precedent, while asking Warhol to extend his practice onto a car’s exterior.

By April 8, the method was still unsettled. David Whitney suggested a paint roller of the kind used to print flower designs on walls. Warhol searched paint stores until one could obtain a roller for him the following Monday, and planned to send Ronnie to collect it. The entry captures the practical, improvised labor behind the project before any full-size car was painted.

Testing the pattern on a model

On April 12, television cameras arrived to film Warhol painting a model of the BMW he expected to paint later. His intended design used a flower-pattern roller, initially with pink and black paint; Chris Makos persuaded him to change the colors to yellow and black. The trial quickly became a material problem: the paint was shiny and slippery, and would not adhere to the model.

As the attempt deteriorated, Warhol rolled paint onto Victor Bockris. The test ended as a bust, and Leo Castelli, who came by, nearly became sick at the mess. The scene made the model more than a miniature stand-in: its surface and the paint’s behavior actively frustrated the proposed technique, while the television cameras made that failed experiment part of the project’s public record.

A new car, a renewed invitation

Later, Leo Castelli told Warhol that BMW was introducing a new car and would not use the design he had made for the old one. The change did not end the commission. Instead, BMW wanted him to go to Paris on June 12 to paint the new vehicle, effectively replacing the original brief with an opportunity to work on a different car.

The diary leaves that invitation in the future tense. It records the project’s progression from commission to model test to revised plan, but does not say whether Warhol went to Paris or completed the full-size car. That unresolved ending matters: the surviving account documents both the ambition of the commission and the practical contingencies that kept its final outcome open.