The David Hockney-Designed BMW Art Car to Debut at Paris Photo

Paris Photo is making its grand return to Los Angeles’ Paramount Pictures Studios for its second annual event this April.

A highlight of this year’s photo festival is the presentation of the BMW Art Car by David Hockney, celebrating almost 20 years since its creation in Los Angeles in 1995.

The vehicle incorporates the city’s sunlight and winding roads and was designed solely as an exhibit; it has never been driven on the road.  Hockney literally turned the car inside out, making it transparent through unique perception. The hood sports a stylized reproduction of the engine’s intake manifold, the driver is visible through the door, and a dachshund can be seen sitting on the back seat. Details from an abstract landscape render this sensual driving experience perceptible.

Said Hockey of his masterpiece: “BMW gave me a model of the car and I looked at it time and time again. Finally, I thought it would be a good idea to show the car as if one could see inside.”

Besides the Art Car, other highlights of the event, which will run from April 25 – 27 includeThe Paris Photo Agenda, a new visual platform presented by Leica that selects the best of photography throughout the year from more than 200 galleries and institutions around the world.

The conservations program will feature discussions on the multiple intellectual perspectives on the use of images by bringing together notable curators and influential artists such as Walead Beshty, Leigh Ledare, Stephen Shore, Taryn Simon and Jeff Wall, while the LAPD will even get in on the action with an exhibition of “unseen treasures” from its photo archive.

Galleries participating in this year’s festival include 303, New York; Bryce Wolkowitz, New York; Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles; Christophe Gaillard, Paris; Daniel Blau, Munich; Danziger, New York; Feroz, Bonn; Fraenkel, San Francisco; François Ghebaly, Los Angeles; Gagosian, Beverly Hills; Guido Costa Projects, Turin; Hamiltons, London; Howard Greenberg, New York; Koenig & Clinton, New York; K.O.N.G, Seoul; Les Filles du Calvaire, Paris; Loevenbruck, Paris; Luisotti, Santa Monica; M+B, Los Angeles; Martin Asbaek, Copenhagen; Nikolaus Ruzicska, Salzburg; Paule Anglim, San Francisco; Piece Unique, Paris; Riflemaker, London; Rolf Art, Buenos Aires; Sabine Knust, Munich; Stevenson, Cape Town; Tasveer, New Delhi; Team Gallery, New York; Thomas Solomon, Los Angeles; and Thomas Zander, Cologne; and more exhibitors to be announced in the coming weeks.