Robin Rhode turns BMW into a paintbrush

Steve Kretzmann

Renowned for interacting with two-dimensional drawings to create his own unique brand of ‘performance art’, South Africa’s answer to Banksy, Robin Rhode, is now painting with cars. Expensive cars. Like the new BMW Z series.
While BMW has been producing an art car collection for over three decades, Rhode has not painted on the car. Rather, he installed hose pipes filled with paint which, via remote control, spray paint onto the tyres. By driving the car along a carefully choreographed route on a 100m by 200m canvas, he has transformed the vehicle into a paintbrush to create a massive abstract work, titled ‘Expression of Joy’.
Created in a once-off 12 hour marathon of ‘painting’, the process was filmed by Jake Scott in Los Angeles’ Downey Studios. The work, along with the film, is to be displayed in New York’s Vanderbilt Hall from March 25 to April 8.
33-year-old Rhode, who is now based in Berlin, is quoted on the BMW website as saying: “This work is an expression of painting in action - my hope is to communicate the power and thrill inherent in the creation of art…the use of an untraditional paintbrush like a high performance car is a great way to investigate the relationship between emotion, technology and industrial creativity.”
In collaborating with BMW, Rhode joins a long list of famous artists, including Andy Warhol, David Hockney and Roy Lichtenstein.
The film clip can be viewed on the web at http://www.bmw.com/com/_shortcuts/joy/index_en.html

for more images see:
http://www.terato.com/cars/content/view/1375/47/