In Milan, Italy, he is holding a retrospective show on one of the greatest exponents of pop-art, Andy Warhol. There, among other works, is the emblematic BMW M1 Art Car, which the artist painted by hand in 1979. As has been the case lately, radical environmental groups have used art as a way of making their protests visible, and in this case they vandalized the vehicle by throwing eight kilos of flour on it.
The activists circumvented security by jumping over the cordon that protected the work and they threw the bags of flour until they covered the entire carwhile proclaiming slogans such as “There will be no more food and water, there is an ecological collapse underway!”
Although the claim is valid and the alert is true, vandalizing works of art to make a slogan visible is a childish and unfortunate method, since they not only take the anger of the whole world, but also harm the heritage history attacking something as important to humanity as art. It would not be bad to remind them that it is not art that pollutes the planetobviously they are mistaken in the focus.
The history of the BMW M1 Art Car by Warhol
In 1979, BMW asked Warhol to intervene in one of its cars, a good habit that the Bavarian company knew how to have, calling on artists to create its famous “Art Cars”. Andy Warhol painted the entire car himself, with people assisting him only to reach the paint cans. True to his style painting the entire M1 took him a mere 30 minutes.
According to Warhol himself, the composition of colors and the way in which they were distributed throughout the car tried to give a description of the speed.also taking into account that it was a sports car that as standard had a 3.5L inline 6 engine that delivered 273 hp and 243 lb-ft, to reach a top speed of 260 km/h and 0 to 100 km/h in 5.6 seconds.
Days of being decorated by Andy Warhol, this BMW M1 adorned with the number 76 competed in the 24 Hours of Le Manswhere he finished second in his class and sixth overall
