Jeff Koons designs a BMW - the artist in interview

Ten years after his Art Car, Jeff Koons designs a BMW again - this time in an edition of 80 pieces. A conversation about speed, Nietzsche and the perfection of white beer foam.

Jeff Koons designs a car again ten years after his BMW Art Car. This time you can also buy it.

A Jeff Koons does not let himself be thwarted. Even when everything came to a standstill in the spring, he flew across the pandemic to deserted Munich to complete his edition of the M850i on site with BMW engineers. Even after a ten-hour day at the factory, Koons, the millionaire artist, is amiably focused. He answers quietly and always Solomon-like. Tomorrow he is to test drive his car. He smiles. A beer, please!

Jeff Koons on the creation of his BMW Edition

Are you a fast driver?

Oh, in the U.S. I drive a little over the limit. But when I lived in Germany, I enjoyed pushing the gas a little more. The fastest I could go was maybe 235 kilometers per hour.

What actually interests an artist about a car? The shape is already fixed.

BMW invited me a decade ago to design an Art Car. Just the idea of becoming part of this family of artists with Warhol, Lichtenstein, or Calder, who had all done a race car, electrified me. I really enjoyed working with BMW and still had many ideas. One was to work with lenticular. That's an optical effect where the images overlap. You look at one, and it's like it's three images at once, like it's moving. I thought: When a car drives by with it, it goes Pop! Pop! Pop!

Why did you pick this particular model?

It's a car that is sold all over the world. We wanted a car that was luxurious but also high performance. I'm interested in all the senses, including the sound of the engine. I'm interested in the moment of power. That strength that the driver or rider feels, but also the people in the back seat. Fortunately, I have the means to buy a sporty car. But sometimes I also have a problem seeing myself at the wheel. Imagining that.

Really? Why?

Because of the meaning that lies in such a gesture, too.

Because it's such a male dominance gesture?

Well, maybe also because it could be too showy. But I have to say: sitting behind a steering wheel, that's already visually and as a concept attractive, very stimulating. For me, the project is also about speed, strength and looking back; it's reminiscent of all the M-Class models. In addition, the car has a street quality, which is probably the most American thing about the project. The colors reference the Renaissance, my work always takes a bow to other artists.

"Sitting behind a steering wheel is already visually and as a concept attractive, very stimulating. The project for me is also about speed, strength and looking back, it's reminiscent of all the M-Class models."

Why is that so important to you?

I am convinced that you can only feel something like transcendence when you find things outside yourself. Things that are greater than oneself. That allows you to grow. Look at artists sometime, they all love the work of other great artists. Rauschenberg became Rauschenberg because of Manet, Manet became Manet because of Titian, and I also want to contribute to that cycle. So I also see Titian in this car, and Lichtenstein, but also the engineering history of BMW. Titian would like the car!

Do you want the buyer to actually drive around in your car - or is it more of an exhibit?

For me, art means feeling the essence of one's own possibilities. One can be stimulated by the most diverse situations, a painting, a sculpture, by someone dancing ballet - this stimulation in the viewer himself, that is art.

Is it true that wheat beer has the perfect texture for you?

Yes! I love the aroma. It makes me feel connected to nature. My ancestors are from Germany and from the Netherlands. I grew up in Pennsylvania. A lot of Germans live there, maybe because the landscape is similar, the hills. In the early 90s, I had an apartment in Munich. At that time I was looking for manufactories that could make my works from the "Banality" series in wood and porcelain. But already from 1986 I was here a lot, mostly in the "Bayerischer Hof". Even today my family spends almost every New Year's Eve here.

Many of your works have high-gloss surfaces, in which the world, the viewers are reflected. Like a reassurance of the absolute present. At the moment, however, people seem to be looking back above all.

I'm interested in the now. I've always loved Nietzsche's definition of the metaphysical: the metaphysical is the past, the present, and the future. I enjoy being in the now, I try to detach myself from fears to open myself to experience, but also to feel connected.

"Titian would like the car!"

You once said: "The past is perfect." What did you mean?

The past cannot be anything but what it was. It is over. We can no longer change it. I have tried some methods to free myself from fears, such as acceptance, or by stopping judging. As an individual, one is virtually disempowered by judgments.

Why art helped Jeff Koons break free from his fears

How do you do it? Through meditation or making art?

Art! And I try to keep in mind that as a human being, I have deeper experiences when I let go of fears. I remember well how I was intimidated by art when I was young because I wasn't able to accept myself. I was so insecure. Somehow I learned to accept myself. Since then, I've tried to teach others that they don't have to be afraid of art. I want them to know that they are perfect just the way they are, their past, their background, their cultural history, everything about them.

You once described your art as "non-judgmental."

That's right. I work with images that try to penetrate to the viewer. So that they don't intimidate. Art can encourage people, but it can also disempower them very easily.

One of your most famous series, "Made in Heaven," shows a lot of sex and is about freedom, including freedom from shame. More than 30 years later, we talk more about shame than ever before. Could you do the series the same way today?

It would probably look tamer. But I'm still dealing with the central messages: to communicate that we should try to accept who we are, as human beings, including nature, biology. In the works in this series, I was really concerned with representing each individual, each man and woman.

Art of today often conveys a moral valuation, many artists see themselves as activists. What do you think about that?

Art can be anything. Art is such a powerful tool. Art can change your life - and the lives of the people around you. I've always liked it when art doesn't subordinate itself to certain themes, doesn't allow itself to be constrained by certain political issues. I've always considered my art to be extremely political. Political in the sense of empowerment, not because of a particular subject.

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