Esther Mahlangu’s Second BMW Art Car World Premiere Was the Hottest Ticket at Frieze Los Angeles
Written by Emily Fuentes on March 9, 2024
The world has waited over 30 years, but Esther Mahlangu is back with her second BMW Art Car. The South African artist inspired the design of the BMW Art Car by Esther Mahlangu, which debuted at Frieze Los Angeles, and EBONY had a front-row seat.
With champagne in hand, we toasted the unveiling of the BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA. This one-of-a-kind vehicle combines BMW’s color-change technology with Mahlangu’s traditional visual language, highlighting the intersection between art, culture and technology.
Illuminated throughout its exterior body and wheels, the i5 Flow NOSTOKANA lit up with the artist’s signature designs. It became an electrifying work of design through sections of attached electronically animated film and developments in color-change technology. The car features Mahlangu’s voice and the sound of the feather brushes with which she paints her large-scale murals.
“Thank you for the exhibition,” Mahlangu said in her native language via a video at the unveiling.
Mahlangu’s BMW Art Car license plate reads NOSTOKANA, named after her first son, which translates to “Mother of Stokana.” In Ndebele South African culture, elders are addressed as the mother or father of their children.
The BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA boasts 1,349 film sections, each of which can be individually controlled. The laser cutting process used to trim the film and the electronic control design were developed in partnership with E Ink. The BMW Group developed the adaptation of the technology for curved surfaces, as well as the programmed animations.
Mahlangu has a good reason to paint in her iconic style: it’s preserving her heritage. She was taught the skills of mural painting by her mother and grandmother. In South Ndebele culture, it is custom for women to paint the exterior of homes. She’s teaching these skills to younger members of her community to keep the art style alive.
Mahlangu first gained recognition for her mural style workings in 1989, at age 54, during a French art exposition. Two years later, she partnered with the BMW Group to present her first art car for the company. Mahlangu transformed a BMW 525i with traditional geometric Ndebele motifs. She was the first woman and first African to do so for the BMW Art Car series. This milestone was made more notable as the 1990s had kicked off with apartheid activist Nelson Mandela being freed from his 27 years of political imprisonment. Mahlangu’s work is known worldwide. She counts Rihanna, Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz as avid collectors.
At 88, the artist isn’t slowing down. Mahlangu is gearing up for a big exhibition hosted by the Iziko Museums of South Africa and the BMW Group in Cape Town. The “Then I Knew I Was Good at Painting”: Esther Mahlangu. A Retrospective, which runs until August 11, 2024, honors the life’s work of one of South Africa’s most influential artists and cultural ambassadors.
In Other Frieze Los Angeles News…
Other notable Black artists featured at Frieze Los Angeles included sculptor James Perkins, presented as part of Focus, a collection of Black art curated by Essence Harden, fellow sculptor Lauren Halsey; whose large-scale piece the eastside of south central los angeles hieroglyph prototype architecture premiered at The Met in New York City; and the debut of Devin Wesley, a rising queer Black artist who explores Black masculinity and narratives through his work.
Artist Gary Tyler, the 2024 Right of Return Fellow, won the 2024 Frieze Los Angeles Impact Prize. His emotional work chronicles the 42 years he spent in prison until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled his sentencing unconstitutional in 2016. “This is my life,” he told EBONY.
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