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The BMW 3.0 CSL Art Car returns to centre stage in Istanbul, anchoring Contemporary Istanbul’s 20th edition as part of the BMW Art Car World Tour. This landmark coupe—originally transformed by Alexander Calder—shares the floor with Julie Mehretu’s BMW M Hybrid V8, bringing half a century of rolling sculpture to Türkiye for the first time and setting a motorsport-infused tone for the fair’s anniversary year.
Across 24–28 September 2025 at Tersane Istanbul, the fair welcomes galleries, institutions and collectors from across the globe, with the BMW Lounge displaying both the Calder 3.0 CSL and the latest commission by Mehretu. The pair bookend the collection’s heritage and its future: the 3.0 CSL that raced at Le Mans in 1975 and the M Hybrid V8 that returned the project to the pit lane in 2024. Together they underline how competition DNA, aerodynamics and surface language can be reinterpreted through contemporary art without losing the cars’ mechanical identity.
BMW’s presence extends beyond the show stand. A dedicated Art Talk with BMW Group Cultural Engagement will unpack anecdotes from five decades of commissions, tracing a lineage that runs through touring cars, endurance prototypes and production silhouettes. Istanbul now joins a tour that spans five continents, linking major cultural platforms and historic automotive stages while spotlighting how chassis, livery and form can operate as both design object and performance tool.
For Contemporary Istanbul, the pairing signals ambition on an international grid: museum collaborations, a Focus America section, and dialogues exploring how the city maps onto today’s cultural landscape. For visitors, it offers a rare close-up with two icons that fuse design studio and pit wall—Calder’s sculptural colour fields on the BMW 3.0 CSL and Mehretu’s kinetic graphics across the BMW M Hybrid V8—reminding us that great cars can carry ideas as fluently as they carry speed.
