From October 9 to 13, the contemporary art fair Frieze London and Frieze Masters will return to London’s Regent’s Park. As one of Frieze’s long-term global partners since 2004, BMW will honor the artistic oeuvre of Ndebele artist Esther Mahlangu, who was the first woman to create a BMW Art Car in 1991. Together with BMW, Serpentine will reveal “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” (“I am because you are”), a new site-specific mural by Mahlangu in the garden at Serpentine North.
In 1991, Esther Mahlangu designed the 12th BMW Art Car in the esteemed collection, based on a BMW 525i – becoming the first woman and African artist to do so. Since 1975, artists such as Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jenny Holzer, Jeff Koons, Cao Fei, and John Baldessari have turned BMW race and series cars into works of art. Her BMW Art Car marked the beginning of a longstanding relationship between the BMW Group and Mahlangu, inspiring future collaborations.
Esther Mahlangu (b. 1935, South Africa) has been creating large-scale and site-specific works for over eight decades and is a pioneer of Pan-African contemporary art. She began painting at the age of ten, learning the traditional Ndebele techniques and visual language of covering houses in bold patterns from her mother and grandmother. Mahlangu uses natural pigments mixed with clay, soil, and cow dung to paint directly on the exteriors of structures in her village. Rather than using stencils and tape to achieve lines and shapes, she paints by hand with chicken feathers and an array of brushes. The artist also works with acrylic paints on canvas, which allows her to explore different scales and a broader color palette.
The year marks a pinnacle in Esther Mahlangu’s career. Besides the activities during Frieze London, a retrospective of her work is touring the world: “Then I Knew I Was Good at Painting”, which opened in February 2024 at the Iziko Museums of South Africa. The exhibition showcases Esther Mahlangu’s more than 50-year career and her rise as a contemporary artist, a journey that has earned her global recognition. As part of the show, Mahlangu’s BMW 525i Art Car returned to South Africa for the first time in over 30 years. The next stop on the global tour is at the Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg, opening on November 19. Moreover, her works were part of the 2024 Venice Biennale main exhibition, “Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere”, curated by Adriano Pedrosa. And the latest in her remarkably versatile collaborations with the BMW Group premiered at Frieze L.A. this February: the BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA, featuring her artistic language and BMW’s color-change technology.
Read the full press release here.
See photos and read more about the history of BMW Art Cars here.
Tags: BMW Art Car Frieze London