Mr Olaf Kastner (right), President and CEO of BMW Brilliance at The Art of Enlightenment. Photos: Courtesy of BMW China

The wide-ranging exhibition The Art of Enlightenment, jointly presented by the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden and the Bayerische Staatsgem?ldesammlungen in Munich, finally raised its curtain at the National Museum in Beijing last Friday. The exhibition, the newly refurbished musuem's first, reveals the unfolding artistic and intellectual curiosity and openness of mind which characterized this era in European history. BMW is the first partner of the collaboration and will support promoting with additional formats.

Frank-Peter Arndt, Member of the Management Board of the BMW AG, said: "It is part of our identity to be culturally involved in countries we do business in. Support of The Art of the Enlightenment in Beijing is the BMW Group's most significant cultural commitment in Asia in 2011. Both China and Germany find themselves yet again in times of great change and reorientation. I believe that the liberal discourse and the open exchange between the two nations are both topical and necessary."

"The reopening of the National Museum is a major event that manifests China's profound cultural legacies as well as its success. As a brand with solid artistic and humanistic substances, BMW is very proud to support the reopening of the National Museum and witness Chinese and German cultures join hands here. I believe it will help promote Sino-German cultural exchange and present a top-class spiritual feast to Chinese and world audiences," said Mr Olaf Kastner, President and CEO of BMW Brilliance, at the press conference.

Besides an exchange program for young curators from China and Germany designed to bring both cultures closer, BMW enables a series of concerts entitled The Music of Enlightenment as a highlight of the whole program. The concert started with a featured piece, Beethoven's Eroica on the evening of April 1st. The Dresden State Orchestra conducted by Lorin Maazel performed together with musicians from the Bavarian State Orchestra and the Berlin State Orchestra. Around 800 international guests from politics, industry and culture as well as international media representatives attended.

The Art of Enlightenment

The show, running until the spring of 2012, highlights the development of an artistic and intellectual inquisitiveness and cosmopolitanism that characterized this period in European history. The almost 600 works on loan include masterpieces by Chodowiecki, Friedrich, Gainsborough, Goya, Graff, Greuze, Hogarth, Kauffmann, Pesne, Piranesi, Tischbein, Vernet and Watteau. Covering an area of 2,700 square meters, it is presenting arts of the enlightenment throughout their entire media spectrum - from the masterpieces of painting, sculpture and graphics, handcraft and fashion to valuable scientific instruments. A total of nine sections direct the view to the central topics of 18th century art: "Courtly Life During the Age of Enlightenment", "Perspectives of Knowledge", "The Birth of History", "Distance and Closeness", "Love and Sensitivity", "Back to Nature", "Nocturnal Sides", "Emancipation and the Public" as well as "The Revolution of Art".

"It opens up the visual world of an epoch on the threshold of modernity, whose ideas are to this very day of programmatic significance to art and whose history of influence is to be brought to life in all its diversity for the Chinese public," said curators of three German museums.

This exchange project is being implemented under the patronage of German Federal President Christian Wulff and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao. The collaboration is the highlight of the German-Chinese cultural exchange program agreed upon in 2005 by the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel.

BMW Culture Night by Liaoning Ballet Troupe

BMW's 40 years of cultural commitment

"2012 will be the 40th anniversary of both countries' relations and it also marks a milestone for BMW's 40-year international culture commitment," said Mr Olaf Kastner.

Since the 1970s, the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in more than 100 international cultural cooperations and sees its commitment as an essential part of corporate communications. 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.

To mark this occasion, the internationally celebrated New York-based graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister has created the design of the publication CULTURE, a book describing the BMW Group's international cultural partnerships. The book is divided into four parts according to the BMW Group's main cultural activities - contemporary art, classical music and jazz, architecture and design and, finally, culture within the company.

As a whole, the numerical arrangement of all book covers would make a square measuring 7 x 7 meters depicting a graphically abstracted image of the legendary BMW "four cylinder" building - the company headquarters in Munich built by Karl Schwanzer in 1972 - from a bird's eye view.

BMW Art Car

BMW China Culture Engagement

In China, BMW also has been dedicated to promote exchanges between different cultures via activities that embody the essence of regional culture for years. Promoting cultural exchange, popularizing the arts and improving levels of cultural knowledge are clear indicators of BMW's long term commitment to the Chinese market.

"The partnership with the National Museum is a good example of BMW efforts in promoting social and cultural responsibility," as Olaf Kastner said: "In the future BMW will continue to play an active role in promoting cultural dialogue."

Since 2007, BMW initiated the BMW China Culture Journey helping to protect China's intangible cultural heritages, which has explored and raised awareness for over 100 cultural relics in 10 provinces and autonomous regions, and did allot donations to over 35 cultural heritages in greatest need.

Besides, in the past four years, BMW has continuously sponsored the Liaoning Ballet Troupe and put on BMW Culture Night performances in major cities in Northeast China in a bid to carry forward classic art, actively promoting the popularization of ballet dance in China and enhancing public understanding of the Liaoning Ballet Troupe. As the BMW Culture Night gains a growing public influence, BMW and the Liaoning Ballet Troupe have jointly brought the BMW Culture Night to Beijing to share with the Beijing audience the classic charms of ballet art in 2010.

BMW also attached great importance to support contemporary art. BMW has launched ArtPower 100 with ArtValue Magazine for two years, acknowledging art figures who have exerted significant influence upon China's contemporary art and also made great contributions to the development of future arts. The ArtPower 100 unveiled a list consisting of 100 artists, managers of galleries, auction firms and art museums, as well as art organizations, art sponsors and brokers. Besides, BMW also launched, in November 2010, BMW Supporting Program for Contemporary Young Artists, designed to discover and sponsor outstanding young artists in China, encourage them to persist in their art dreams and inject new blood to the development of contemporary art in China. According to the plan, BMW will provide the selected artists with one year of assistance to their artistic work through providing art funds, sponsoring personal art exhibitions and publishing personal albums.

Exhibits of The Art of Enlightenment

2010 BMW China Culture Journey