With very little background in art, I found Andy Warhol’s work to be quite fascinating because of the canvas that was worked on. Before elaborating on my own thoughts on this piece of art, I would like to give a quick background on the actual car that this work was done on. In 1973, BMW created a division, now known as their M-division, designed specifically for high performance cars. In 1978, they raced their M1, a car originally developed by engineers from Lamborghini, in Formula 1 races, but was required to have a production version of this car available to consumers if they wished to continue racing in the Procar Series. Because of this, 450 M1 cars were produced for their customers with a downgraded 6 cylinder engine that produced significantly less horsepower than their race versions. From the time that this was announced, the M1 was lamented as a collectors’ item.
When asked about his inspiration for the painting, Mr. Warhol said, “I tried to portray speed pictorially. If a car is moving really quickly, all the lines and colors are blurred.” In the video posted above, you can see that the car was painted using paint brushes, as opposed to spray guns which are normally used for production cars, and even his fingers to gain the specific effect that he was looking for. It was also noted that previous artists had used scaled down versions of their cars before actually painting, but Mr. Warhol did not do so. This shows that he was confident in his ability to portray the illusion that he had in his mind directly to the car. While some BMW fanatics do not appreciate the fact that this was done on such a rare car, many might be surprised that this was actually raced competitively in 1979, and won 6th place during the 24-hour Le Mans race. While I also found it disturbing that he would be allowed to do this to a car of its stature, my opinion has been changed because it was actually used as both a marketing piece competitive component to BMW’s racing division.
The weird part about this car is just how it was painted. As stated before, most cars are painted with a spray gun, with brushes being used for small details (such as pin striping). The fact that he went directly at this car with a large paint brush shows the difference between an artist and just a regular body shop worker. I found his attention to detail to be fascinating, with the finger marks throughout the body of the car to show the “speed” aspect of the car. After doing a little more research into this car, I can say that my opinion of Mr. Warhol’s interpretation of this car is a very good representation of what the car was able to do.
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