Kiehl's X Koons Limited Edition Collection Benefits Kids And Dry Skin.

Kiehl's has collaborated with world-recognized contemporary artist Jeff Koons (again*) to raise awareness - and funds- for kids in need.




Jeff Koons is using his creative genius and Kiehl's is using their brilliant body lotion (I kid you not, it's one of the greatest products ever made) to help children in need around the world. With the shared vision of creating safer, more sustainable environments for children, the partnership is raising awareness and funds through the sale of the 2010 Limited Edition Creme de Corps Holiday Collection, a four-product collection that includes 3 sizes of their awesome body lotion, each with a colorful Koons label and their newest formulation, Creme de Corps Whipped Body Butter.

The Jeff Koons painting used for the Keihl's limited edition collection labels:

above: Tulips, oil on canvas, 111 5/16 x 130 11/16 inches, 282.7 x 331.9 cm, 1995–1998

1 Liter ($70) and 16.9 oz ($45) pump bottles :

8.4 oz size ($27) and the new Whipped Body Butter ($35):


Buy the products here

Keihl's has collaborated with artists several times before. Below is their 2009 Creme de Corps Holiday Collection with labels by KAWS:



100% of Kiehl’s net profits from the sale of each product will benefit The Koons Family Institute, an initiative of the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC).

*This is not the first time Koons has lent his creative talents to Kiehl's. This past March, in celebration of Earth Day, Jeff Koons, along with Pharell Williams, Julianne Moore and Malia Jones created special edition labels for Kiehl's Acai Damage-Protecting Mist.

images and information courtesy of Kiehl's

Jeff Koons BMW Art Car Is Finished. And Here It Is.

On April 7th, I brought you the news that artist Jeff Koons would be designing the 17th BMW Art Car.

At the premiere of the 17th BMW Art Car Jeff Koons unveiled and signed his car in front of 300 international VIP guests on June 1 in the Centre Pompidou, one of the world’s most prestigious cultural institutions for modern and contemporary art. It is the same place where Roy Lichtenstein back in 1977 first presented and signed his Art Car. Koons’ canvas is a BMW M3 GT2, which was homologated to compete at this year’s running of the world’s most famous endurance race.

Here's a look at it, from all angles:







As part of his creative process, the artist collected images of race cars, related graphics, vibrant colors, speed and explosions. The resulting artwork of bright colors conceived by Koons is evocative of power, motion and bursting energy. Its silver interior along with the powerful exterior design, the Art Car will impart a dynamic appearance even when it’s standing still.

“These race cars are like life, they are powerful and there is a lot of energy,” said Koons. “You can participate with it, add to it and let yourself transcend with its energy. There is a lot of power under that hood and I want to let my ideas transcend with the car – it’s really to connect with that power”.

Koons has been in an intense collaboration with BMW’s team in Munich for months – melding his skill with sophisticated BMW engineering – to ensure that the 17th BMW Art Car will be race-ready for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Under Koons’ direct guidance and supervision, his BMW Art Car was produced in assistance with a team of BMW engineers and designers at Schmid Design, outside Munich.

The challenge to create the BMW Art Car had to do with using a light material and a design that would not interfere with the racecar's aerodynamics and weight. Timing was also an issue, as there was only a two month window between the first design sketches and the Paris world premiere. This is why digital print on car wrapping vinyl was used covered by a double clear-coating to bring out the color.

To apply hundreds of dynamic lines of Koons' design onto the car, CAD designs were translated from 3D into 2D for the printing process and then painstakingly applied to the entire car as well as onto individual spare parts. Koons design incorporates many bright contrasting colors to communicate the aesthetics of power. The concept design was transformed into hard edged lines of color. Graphics of debris were added to the rear sides and back of the car to simulate the power of the car. Furthermore, two graphic rings on the rear of the car represent supersonic acceleration.
information and images courtesy of BMW.


•See all 16 previous BMW art cars by the likes of Andy Warhol, David Hockney and Jenny Holzer here.

Jeff Koons Designs the 17th Art BMW (And A Really Good Look At The Other 16).

above: Jeff Koons' concept art for the car

The New York Times announced yesterday that the next BMW art car, a long standing tradition, will be done by contemporary artist Jeff Koons.
View Koon's finished BMW Art Car here.



Koon’s relationship with BMW started more than two decades ago when he first drove a BMW whilst living in Munich, home to the BMW Group headquarters. It was in 2003 that Koons first expressed his desire to create a BMW Art Car.

Frank-Peter Arndt, member of the Board of Management for the BMW AG and responsible for BMW Group’s international cultural formats, said: “We are enormously pleased about Jeff Koons’ eagerly anticipated contribution to the BMW Art Car series, celebrating its 35th anniversary. Art Cars are part of the DNA of BMW’s cultural engagement. As manifested in Koons’ latest sculptural work, what unites us is the belief that nothing is impossible. Our company and Jeff Koons are drawn to permanent innovation and cutting-edge technology.”


above: Jeff Koons (right)with celebrated architect Richard Meier (left) at the party celebrating the announcement that Jeff Koons will create the 17th BMW Art Car at Koons‘ Manhattan studio, Tuesday, February 2, 2010.

It's fairly well known that BMW has commissioned 16 Art Cars over the last four decades. The cars have toured museums around the world, including the Louvre in Paris, the Royal Academy in London, the Whitney Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and at the Guggenheim museums in New York and Bilbao.



Four of them, by the artists Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella and Robert Rauschenberg, appeared at Grand Central Terminal in New York for two weeks in March of 2009. Those pieces (shown below) are part of a collection of 16 cars, from a 635CSi to an M1, that BMW has turned over to artists to re-imagine since 1975.



Andy Warhol, BMW M1 Group 4 Race Version, 1979:



 

Roy Lichtenstein, BMW 320i Group 5 Race Version, 1977:





Frank Stella, BMW 3.0 CSL, 1976:






Robert Rauschenberg, BMW 635 CSi, 1986:





Here are the other 12.

Alexander Calder, 3.0CSL, 1975. One of Calder’s last works, his BMW Art Car competed in the 1975 24 Hours of Le Mans:




Ernest Fuchs, 635CSi, 1982. He said his piece “represents a hare racing across a motorway at night and leaping over a burning car.”:




Ken Done, M3 Group A racing model, 1989. Along with Michael Jagamara Nelson, Mr. Done was one of two Australian artists commissioned by BMW in 1989. He painted parrots and parrot fish on his car:




Michael Jagamara Nelson, M3 Group A racing model, 1989. Using a style derived from traditional Aboriginal painting, Mr. Nelson’s work portrays a landscape as seen from the sky:




Matazo Kayama, 535i, 1990. Mr. Kayama used Japanese techniques of foil impression and metal cutting over an airbrushed surface:



Cesar Manrique, 730i, 1990. The Spanish artist and architect said he wanted his car “to appear as if it were gliding through space without encountering any form of resistance.”:




Esther Mahlangu, 525i, 1991. She painted her car in the traditional form of the Ndebele tribe of South Africa:




A. R. Penck, Z1, 1991. The German artist covered his car with pictographic images and symbols in a design that evokes primitive cave paintings:




Sandro Chia, M3 GTR, 1992. “Look at anything hard enough and it turns into a face,” said this Italian painter and sculptor of his Art Car. “And a face is a focal point of life and of the world.”:





David Hockney, 850CSi, 1995. His design offers an “inside” view of the car, including renderings of the intake manifolds painted on the hood:




Jenny Holzer, V12 LMR, 1999. Her Le Mans Roadster includes aphorisms like “The Unattainable Is Invariably Attractive.”:





Photographs © BMW AG

above Left: David Hockney painting Art Car 1995, BMW 850 CSi; above right: Jenny Holzer signing Art Car 1999, BMW V12 LMR

The final and 16th art car of the series thus far; Olafur Eliasson, H2R, 2007. He turned BMW’s hydrogen-powered race car into an Art Car on ice (this one has to be kept in a refrigerated room, for obvious reasons):

The Process - Installation view Studio Olafur Eliasson, Commissioned by BMW Group:






© Olafur Eliasson and BMW Group

special thanks to BMW, Dezeen and Car Body Design and The Curated Object for additional images. and to the Los Angeles Times and Robert Peele for additional info.

Miniature replicas of all of these cars (except for the Olafur Eliasson one) are available for purchase here.

See Jeff Koons finished version of the BMW Art Car here