Julie Mehretu BMW Art Car & AFMAC Pan-African Initiative

From Le Mans to Lagos: How Julie Mehretu Transformed a Race Car Into a Pan-African Cultural Movement

The Ethiopian-born artist’s 20th BMW Art Car didn’t just compete at the 24 Hours of Le Mans—it launched a continent-wide initiative bringing filmmakers together across five African cities.

When BMW asked Julie Mehretu to paint a race car, she gave them something far more ambitious: a vehicle for continental connection.

The Ethiopian-born artist, now one of the most celebrated painters of her generation, unveiled her BMW M Hybrid V8 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in May 2024. Within weeks, it was hurtling around the Circuit de la Sarthe at the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans. But Mehretu had negotiated something unusual with BMW from the start. The Art Car would be more than a beautiful object—it would become the anchor for a pan-African initiative connecting artists and filmmakers from Lagos to Cape Town.

That initiative, the African Film and Media Arts Collective (AFMAC), completed its final workshop in Cape Town this week. The project culminates with a major exhibition opening at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in December 2026, where Mehretu’s Art Car will be displayed alongside six new films created through the collective.

For MoMAA, which has previously featured Mehretu among the Icons of African Art and as one of the 25 Most Influential Black Female Artists Shaping Contemporary Art, the BMW project represents a new dimension of her practice—one that extends beyond the canvas to institutional building across the continent.

A Painting That Moves at 340 km/h

Mehretu approached the Art Car commission with characteristic ambition. Rather than simply decorating a vehicle, she reimagined her monumental painting “Everywhen” (2021-2023)—then on view at Palazzo Grassi in Venice before joining MoMA’s permanent collection—as something that could exist at racing speed.

The concept hinged on transformation. In her New York studio, Mehretu positioned a model of the M Hybrid V8 in front of the finished painting. What would happen, she wondered, if the car could pass through the canvas itself?

The result appears to consume the painting. Explosive marks cascade across the bodywork. Architectural traces and gestural sweeps wrap the aerodynamic surfaces. At rest, it’s visually overwhelming—dense layers of colour and line competing for attention. But Mehretu designed it specifically for speed. At full velocity, the car becomes a blur, an abstraction of an abstraction. The layered marks dissolve into pure chromatic energy.

For Mehretu, this kinetic dimension distinguished the project from museum-bound work. The painting only achieves its final form in motion. The race itself becomes the concluding brushstroke.

Le Mans: When the Art Took Flight

In June 2024, the #20 BMW M Hybrid V8 Art Car took to the Circuit de la Sarthe for the 92nd 24 Hours of Le Mans. Drivers Sheldon van der Linde, Robin Frijns, and René Rast shared duties behind the wheel.

The race was brutal. After qualifying in 16th position, the team suffered a punctured tyre in the opening hour. They clawed back into the top ten before a violent collision with tyre barriers at the Motul Chicane sent the car limping to pit lane on three wheels. The repair took 24 minutes.

The Art Car crossed the finish line unclassified, having completed 96 laps—far short of the leaders. But in a sense, the race fulfilled Mehretu’s vision perfectly. The car bore the marks of endurance: scratches, debris, the accumulated evidence of 24 hours in combat. It had become, as she intended, a living painting—one transformed by the very act of competition.

All seven BMW Art Cars that have competed at Le Mans are currently on display at Rétromobile 2026 in Paris (through February 1), celebrating fifty years since Alexander Calder painted the first BMW Art Car in 1975.

Beyond the Canvas: Building AFMAC

From the outset, Mehretu insisted the Art Car project extend beyond motorsport. Born in Addis Ababa in 1970, she emigrated to the United States at age seven—but her Ethiopian heritage remains central to her practice and identity.

Working with her longtime collaborator Mehret Mandefro—an Emmy-nominated film producer also born in Addis Ababa and co-founder of the Realness Institute for African filmmakers—Mehretu developed AFMAC: a network of workshops designed to strengthen media ecosystems across the continent.

The concept emerged from a simple question Mehretu posed to herself: How could an Art Car become a symbol and vocal archive for African creativity?

AFMAC launched in April 2025 with a workshop in Lagos, Nigeria, hosted in partnership with Angels & Muse. Over the following months, the collective moved through Tangier (Morocco), Dakar (Senegal), Nairobi (Kenya), and finally Cape Town (South Africa)—with each workshop led by internationally recognized artists and rooted in local archives, community histories, and experimental practice.

The lead artists represent a formidable roster: Coco Fusco in Lagos; Zeresenay Berhane Mehari (director of the critically acclaimed “Difret”) in Tangier; Academy Award-winning director Mati Diop in Dakar; Jim Chuchu and Wanuri Kahiu in Nairobi; and The Otolith Group in Cape Town.

Ethiopian participation runs throughout the project. Beyond Mehretu and Mandefro’s founding roles, Zeresenay Berhane Mehari—another Ethiopian filmmaker—led the Tangier edition. When asked about the absence of a workshop in Addis Ababa itself, Mehretu acknowledged complications. “That was the intention, it was always going to be Addis Ababa,” she explained. “Then things got complicated. Ethiopia is still on the list if we can make it happen.”

The Workshops in Practice

AFMAC workshops aren’t traditional master classes. Rather than imposing external frameworks, each session draws on regional archives and community input. Participants explore cultural heritage, identity, and experimentation through African film and media materials—developing their own creative approaches rather than replicating established models.

Each workshop produces a new film. The six works will form an anthology of contemporary African media art, screened alongside Mehretu’s Art Car when the exhibition opens at Zeitz MOCAA.

The Cape Town workshop, which concluded this week, featured a public screening of The Otolith Group’s “Infinity Minus Infinity” (2019)—a work blending dance, music, spoken word, and animation to examine how colonial legacies continue shaping contemporary realities. The screening, presented in partnership with Chimurenga (the influential platform for African ideas founded by Ntone Edjabe), exemplified AFMAC’s emphasis on dialogue over spectacle.

For Mandefro, who also founded A51 Pictures in Ethiopia and served as Executive Producer of Kana Television, the initiative addresses structural gaps in African media infrastructure. The workshops don’t just train individual filmmakers—they build networks and institutional relationships that persist beyond any single project.

A Legacy Honoured: Koyo Kouoh’s Role

AFMAC’s culminating exhibition carries particular poignancy. The late Koyo Kouoh, who served as Executive Director and Chief Curator of Zeitz MOCAA, championed the project from its inception. The Cameroonian-Swiss curator, who had been named the first African woman to helm the Venice Biennale before her sudden death in May 2025, worked closely with Mehretu and Mandefro to position the exhibition as a landmark moment for African contemporary art.

“Scaling Intentions,” opening December 11, 2026, and running through August 2027, will present the AFMAC films alongside the BMW M Hybrid V8—transforming a race car into a monument for pan-African creative collaboration.

BMW’s partnership with Zeitz MOCAA predates AFMAC by several years, but the Art Car project elevated the relationship into something more ambitious. The corporate sponsor contributed its network of cultural professionals and institutions across Africa to establish AFMAC on a sustainable, long-term basis—moving beyond typical one-off patronage toward genuine infrastructure building.

What the Art Car Represents

Fifty years separate Alexander Calder’s painted BMW 3.0 CSL from Julie Mehretu’s M Hybrid V8. In that half-century, the Art Car series has featured work by Andy Warhol (1979), Roy Lichtenstein (1977), Jenny Holzer (1999), Jeff Koons (2010), and—notably—South African artist Esther Mahlangu, who in 1991 became the first woman and first African to contribute to the collection.

Mehretu’s entry extends Mahlangu’s legacy while charting new territory. Where previous Art Cars remained primarily objects—however spectacular—Mehretu insisted on process. The car becomes meaningful not through static display but through what it enables: networks built, filmmakers trained, archives accessed, communities connected.

The twenty-first BMW Art Car, whoever creates it, will inherit this expanded definition. Mehretu has demonstrated that painting a race car can also mean building institutions—that an artist’s contribution might be measured not just in marks on metal but in relationships forged across a continent.

Key Dates

• Now through February 1, 2026: All seven Le Mans BMW Art Cars on display at Rétromobile, Paris Expo Porte de Versailles
• January 27-31, 2026: Final AFMAC workshop in Cape Town (completed)
• December 11, 2026 – August 15, 2027: “Scaling Intentions” exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town

Frequently Asked Questions

Julie Mehretu is featured in MoMAA’s Icons of African Art series and as one of the 25 Most Influential Black Female Artists Shaping Contemporary Art. Explore more coverage of African and diaspora artists at momaa.org.