LONDON.- Today Frieze and BMW have named Madeline Hollander as the artist selected for the 2020 BMW Open Work commission. Launched in 2017 and curated by Attilia Fattori Franchini, BMW Open Work is a major artistic initiative bringing together art, design and technology in pioneering multiplatform formats. Hollander will present the commission in two phases, as an interactive digital platform and livery intervention during Frieze Week in London 2020, and as a live, site-specific installation at Frieze Los Angeles 2021. Additionally, a series of handdrawn preparatory studies for the installation will be shown on Frieze Viewing Room.

This year Frieze London and Frieze Masters introduce a hybrid format of online and offline activity, with Frieze Viewing Room taking place alongside an expanded programme of Frieze Week activity across London. Together, Frieze Viewing Room and Frieze Week in London will form a significant moment in the city’s cultural calendar as well as an opportunity for cultural connections and conversations on an international level.

Madeline Hollander said of the commission: ‘Sunrise/Sunset presents an immersive networked spectacle choreographed by sunsets and sunrises across the globe in real time. The piece, composed of hundreds of recycled BMW headlights, transforms an automatic adaptive system already embedded within vehicles, where headlights turn on/off and adjust accordingly in response to light sensors, into a live twinkling global map.’




Attilia Fattori Franchini added: ‘Now in its fourth year, BMW Open Work has established itself as a unique moment of exchange between industrial knowledge, technology and artistic talent. Working with a thrilling artist such as Madeline Hollander, pushing the possibilities of movement to depict invisible systems or processes, brings the program into a new and exciting direction. I can’t wait for Sunrise/Sunset to unfold across different platforms revealing Hollander’s investigation into perpetual loops, energy cycles and renewable power.’

Titled Sunrise/Sunset, the three-part project emerged from Hollander’s dialogue with BMW’s sustainability department and an investigation into the automatic adaptive system of BMW headlights. The project continues the artist’s recent research into traffic patterns and working without human actors to depict unseen systems or processes. The first phase of the project is a digital platform that will launch on October 7 and will function as a precursor to the site-specific installation. Viewers will be invited to interact with a global map composed of headlights, lightening and darkening in relation to the time of day in each location. While exploring the map, users will be able to tune into live-traffic cams streaming images from Berlin, Rome, Los Angeles and New York.

The second part of the project will see Hollander stage an artistic intervention during London’s Frieze Week 5 – 11 October, by adorning a fleet of unique BMW i3 electric with a looping text that reads ‘TOMORROW WILL BE NOTHING LIKE TODAY WILL BE NOTHING LIKE TOMORROW.’ The phrase, recurrent across Hollander’s work, will be visible on all BMW i3 electric cars travelling across London that will be used to transport Frieze Week guests. Employing urban mobility, this intervention will reiterate Sunrise/Sunset’s investigation of perpetual loops, energy cycles and renewable power.

As the final and central component of the commission, the site-specific installation will premiere during Frieze Los Angeles 2021. Composed of hundreds of recycled BMW LED headlights, the installation will create a networked map choreographed by the sunsets and sunrises across the globe.

Madeline Hollander is an artist who works with performance, film and installation. Hollander has had solo exhibitions at Bortolami, NY (2020), The Artist's Institute, NY (2018); Bosse & Baum, UK, and SIGNAL, Brooklyn, NY (2016). Her work has been featured in the Whitney Biennial (2019); The Aldrich Museum, CT (2020); Helsinki Contemporary, Finland (2019); Serpentine Galleries, UK (2018); and the Centre Pompidou Metz, France (2019). Hollander was the choreographer for Jordan Peele’s feature film “Us” (2019) and Urs Fisher’s exhibition “PLAY” presented at Gagosian, NY (2019) and at Jeffrey Deitch, LA (2019). Upcoming projects include solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; The Shed, NY; and ARCH Athens, Greece.