In an effort to liven up their image, Swedish car manufacturer Volvo hosted it’s first ever “Volvo S60 Art Session”. 10 street artists spent 5 days repeatedly painting, spraying and designing a snow-white Volvo S60 against a white background at a live painting event outside the Zurich rail station. During the 5 days the whole process was captured every tenth of a second, and this 3 1/2 min YouTube video was the result. They won’t allow video embedding (bad move on their part), but click the link because it’s really cool!

he Volvo S60 Art Session event at Zurich Main Station (railway station). photo credit: Michel Comte.

Art on cars? A first for Volvo, yes. A first for cars? Not by a long shot!

BMW has commissioned art cars since 1975. The list of artists is not too shabby either. Artists who have made BMW art cars include Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, David Hockney, and Jeff Koons in 2010. Here link to a 2 min video about BMW’s art cars. (What’s this with carmakers not allowing embedding? Don’t they understand social media?)

Jeff Koons BMW M3 GTR Art Car at 24 Hours of Le Mans 2010 ©BMW

William Lindsay, an artist with nAscent Art New York whose work is available at The Bare Square Store, actually painted his own car with his signature squiggle design. William often explores beyond the canvas. He will soon be painting a piano as part of a NYC public art project created by Sing for Hope. Stay tuned–ahem–for updates about the project.

nAscent Artist William Lindsay with his hand painted art car

For more about William Lindsay, check out the Bare Square article about him from last Friday.

Art fans–stay alert. You may find art in unexpected places!

If you like the fun and interesting art news, info, videos, commentary, openings, and events we write about here — stop back  every weekday & share with friends!

-Jen Wallace