BMW Put the New 7 Series Inside an Art Installation in Istanbul – and Somehow It Fits the Car

A BMW 7 Series isn’t exactly difficult to notice. The latest generation is more than five meters long, wears one of the most imposing front ends BMW has ever designed and, in electric i7 form, can turn its rear compartment into something approaching a private cinema.

Apparently that still wasn’t enough visual drama.

BMW has placed the new 7 Series inside “SYMBIOSIS,” an immersive installation by artist duo A.A.Murakami, for the 21st edition of Contemporary Istanbul. The installation is being shown at Tersane Istanbul from September 24 to 27 after previously appearing at Art Basel.

A.A.Murakami is the collaboration between Tokyo-born Azusa Murakami and London-born Alexander Groves. Their work often explores the relationship between technology, nature and human experience, which gives BMW a convenient connection to what it calls the Neue Klasse philosophy.

That could easily become the sort of corporate language people skip over in a press release, but the pairing actually suits the 7 Series surprisingly well.

Modern luxury cars aren’t simply collections of expensive leather and large engines anymore. Much of what separates a flagship from an ordinary car is now digital: screens, lighting, automated functions, driver assistance and the way occupants interact with all of it.

BMW has been pushing particularly hard in that direction.

Its idea of Symbiotic Drive is based on allowing human inputs and electronic assistance to work together rather than making the driver consciously switch between them. The company uses that thinking in its newer driver-assistance systems and increasingly ties it to the Neue Klasse generation of electronics.

The 7 Series is an appropriate place to demonstrate the idea because it already sits at the extreme end of BMW’s technology catalogue.

In the fully electric i7, rear passengers can have the enormous Theatre Screen descending from the roof, while automated driving and parking systems handle tasks that would have sounded fairly exotic in a luxury sedan not many generations ago.

Putting the car into an art installation therefore doesn’t feel quite as random as it initially sounds.

Luxury manufacturers have been associating themselves with art, fashion and architecture for decades because their customers aren’t simply buying transportation. They’re buying design, craftsmanship and, to some extent, an object intended to say something about its owner.

BMW has taken that relationship particularly seriously through its Art Car programme, which dates back to 1975 and has involved artists ranging from Andy Warhol to David Hockney.

“SYMBIOSIS” isn’t another BMW Art Car, though, and that’s an important distinction. The 7 Series itself hasn’t been turned into the artwork. Instead, it sits inside an environment intended to explore the interaction between people, machines and their surroundings.

It also gives us some unusually good photographs of a luxury sedan.

Against the installation’s light, reflections and organic forms, the huge BMW looks less like something parked in a motor-show hall and more like part of the exhibition.

Whether that makes the controversial front grille any easier to love is entirely another discussion.

But if BMW wanted a car capable of holding its own inside an immersive artwork, choosing the quietest model in the range probably wasn’t going to work.

The 7 Series has never really been shy. This time, at least, it has found surroundings equally determined to attract attention.