BMW Art and Music – the Art Car Project in Miniature

Some people collect stamps, some bugs, others go for jars, while others simply collect rare miniature high performance cars covered with artwork. Try to read the last part faster and you'll see how strange it sounds. A bit like a comedian's line during a stand-up act. Fortunately, it was the passion of such people that allowed me to take a look at what would normally be a difficult thing to visit, namely the BMW Art Car Project, which was present at the Los Angeles Country Museum in February and is now showcased in New York's Grand Central Terminal. But as I said, I didn't get to see the famous cars, the real deal so to speak. I had the pleasure to see the lilliputian version of the whole exposition and by that I mean the 1:18 scale models. Yup, believe it or not, there are miniatures that faithfully reproduce all the details of the original works of art.  For a bit of history, the idea of the BMW Art Car Project started more than 30 years ago when the French race car driver Hervé Poulain wanted to invite American artist Alexander Calder to express his talent on his BMW racing car. Since then, other talented artists like Stella, Warhol, Lichtenstein and Rauschenberg followed the example of Calder and designed sixteen BMW Art Cars, based on both racing and regular production vehicles.  Now, back to the story. The place where the event took place is a library in Romania's capital, Bucharest, called Carturesti. I got there with high hopes of glorious images lit by natural light coming down through large windows, only to be utterly disappointed by the harsh reality. The whole thing was taking place below ground, in the library's basement lit by artificial light. What's more, every single one was encased in acrylic glass covered with fingerprints left by over curious visitors and by way too young children to be left alone through rare miniatures.    Anyway, a photographer's got to do what a photographer's got to do. I got on my knees and, as sexual as it may sound, I started shooting away. Not long after that and probably alerted by a Mary Poppins lookalike (read my assistant holding an umbrella) and by showers of bright light (read the flash going through the umbrella or bounced into it), a tall fellow approached me and asked me what website/magazine I was from.    I told him, he left and I resumed my photo session undisturbed. Towards the end of the experience, I wanted to ask him some questions about some of the models and he, the tall guy I told you about, was more than happy to answer them. Apart from the information on some of the models there, I found out that his name was Mani Gutau, that he was the owner and that he had been passionate about cars for as long as he could remember. Moreover, I was a bit surprised to find out that he didn’t have a dull job like you’d except from a guy who owns a rare miniature car collection. You know what I’m talking about, those positions with complicated names few people actually know what they mean. Anyway, to my great surprise, Mani is the founder of a band called Urma (which means Trace in Romanian) who is about to release their latest album, Lost End Found, and a very talented musician, as my research later revealed. As my photographic experiences are less interesting than the story about passions and rare cars, here’s the entire conversation with Mr. Mani Gutau. Tudor Raiciu: How long have you been passionate about cars and when did you start collecting rare models?