Dingolfing. As part of a collaborative project with
ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany, BMW Group Plant
Dingolfing will become the focus of an art project starting on
September 8, 2017. Over the coming seven months, one of the plant’s
robotic facilities for body shop will serve, alongside other sites, as
basis for an installation created by Chinese artist Liu Xiaodong.
Digitalisation plays a vital role in both the body shop activities of
BMW Group and the creative process of Liu Xiaodong. As such, the
project exemplifies the importance of the power of innovation in both
economics and art, and it aspires to create a new, aesthetic
perspective to look at the industry and its manufacturing processes.
The vernissage at ZKM | Center for Art and Media on September 8,
2017, at 7 PM, will launch the months-long creative process necessary
to develop the art work. Liu Xiaodong’s project is titled “Weight of
Insomnia”. It includes three cameras which are installed all over
Germany and directed at various motifs. Each camera sends one picture
per every second to the exhibition space at ZKM | Center for Art and
Media, where three robots will transcribe the collected data on
movements with paint on canvas. A total of three individual art works
will thus be created, each based on the various motifs captured by the
cameras. The layers of paint will overlap as time goes by resulting in
exceptionally dense compositions.
In addition to one camera at the robotic facilities for body shop at
BMW Group Plant Dingolfing, two more cameras were installed, one at
Berlin’s Academy of the Arts and the other at a traffic hub in
Karlsruhe. The live art work will be on display at ZKM | Center for
Art and Media from September 8, 2017, to March 18, 2018, where it will
be shown as part of the “Datumsoria” exhibition.
Dr Andreas Wendt, director of BMW Group Plant Dingolfing, is thrilled
about Liu Xiaodong’s project: “We at BMW Group Plant Dingolfing are
very excited about this art project, which is offering the public at
large entirely new insights into manufacturing processes.
Digitalisation and innovative technologies move industry and art
alike, and the artist’s installation is a unique expression thereof. I
am deeply grateful to Liu Xiaodong and ZKM | Center for Art and Media
in Karlsruhe for making this visionary art work possible at our site.”
Liu Xiaodong is one of the most influential artists of the
contemporary Chinese art world. In his large-scale works, he creates a
balance of artistic image and reality while focusing on the challenges
of our times such as digitalisation. Liu Xiaodong’s works are
represented in renowned museums and art fairs worldwide.
With this project and following this year’s world premiere of the
18th BMW Art Car by Chinese artist Cao Fei in Beijing, BMW
Group continues its long-standing commitment to contemporary Chinese art.