BMW is first partner of the wide-ranging exhibition ‘The Art of Enlightenment,’ which will open at the Chinese National Museum in Beijing on 1 April 2011. Conception and organization of the exhibition at the reopened National Museum of China are the joint efforts of the National Museums in Berlin, the Dresden State Art Collection, the Bavarian State Art Collection Munich and the National Museum of China.

Moreover, the auto brand will support promoting the exhibition to open until the spring of 2012, with additional formats. For example, an exchange program for young curators from China and Germany, which is designed to bring both cultures closer together, will be jointly initiated with the partner institutions. A series of concerts entitled ‘The Music of Enlightenment’ will complete the program.

The almost 600 works on loan include masterpieces by Chodowiecki, Friedrich, Gainsborough, Goya, Graff, Greuze, Hogarth, Kauffmann, Pesne, Piranesi, Tischbein, Vernet and Watteau. Over an area of 2700 m², the exhibition is presenting arts of the enlightenment—from the masterpieces of painting, sculpture and graphics, handcraft and fashion to valuable scientific instruments.

For almost 40 years now, the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in more than 100 international cultural co-operations. The BMW Group places the main focus of its long-term commitment on modern and contemporary art, jazz and classical music as well as architecture and design. In 1972, three large-scale paintings were created by the artist Gerhard Richter specifically for the foyer of the BMW Group’s Munich headquarters. Since then, artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Olafur Eliasson, Thomas Demand and Jeff Koons have co-operated with BMW. In 2011, the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a joint six-year initiative of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, the Guggenheim Museum and the BMW Group, will launch in New York.