NEW SCULPTURE CELEBRATES BMW XM LABEL AT ART BASEL.
8 December 2025
BMW XM Label x Kennedy Yanko | Art Basel 2025
As part of a renewed collaboration, BMW M and artist Kennedy Yanko present a unique sculpture at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025 that celebrates the bold spirit of the new BMW XM Label.
The collaboration began in 2021, when BMW M presented the BMW Concept XM at Art Basel Miami Beach with Kennedy Yanko and Grammy Award-winning musician Nas. Four years later, this partnership enters its next creative phase. The concept car from back then has become a reality in the form of the BMW XM Label and has now inspired another work by Yanko Kennedy. Her latest sculpture, on display for the first time at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025, not only references the BMW Individual colour Santorini Blue, but also reflects the expressive character of the vehicle.
NEW CHALLENGE.
NEW CHALLENGE.
The first collaboration between Yanko Kennedy and BMW M, which resulted in the BMW Concept XM, was a tribute to the intense interaction between art, music and design, between boldness and individuality. The creative process for Yanko’s new sculpture was preceded by a creative exchange with the BMW design team, which explored the parallels between automotive design and artistic creation. In the process, they discovered shared values and ideas: a fascination with duality, movement, experimentation and the balance between precision and emotion.
Known for pushing boundaries and expanding the processing of materials, Yanko developed the idea for an industrial-looking sculpture that would reflect the characteristic and uncompromising design of the BMW XM Label.
INSPIRED BY THE BMW XM LABEL.
INSPIRED BY THE BMW XM LABEL.
With the sculpture, which celebrates its world premiere at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025, Kennedy Yanko aims to transpose industrial elements into expressive forms, reflecting the distinctive and uncompromising design of the BMW XM Label. When experienced together, the BMW XM Label and the new sculpture enter into a dialogue about design and art, machine and emotion.
This collaboration continues the cultural engagement by BMW and underlines the commitment of the BMW Group to creative projects at the interface of art, culture and innovation.
ABOUT KENNEDY YANKO.
ABOUT KENNEDY YANKO.
Kennedy Yanko is a sculptor and installation artist whose work pushes the boundaries of material and perception. Using scrap metal and her signature ‘paint skins,’ Yanko explores the limits of optical vision, inviting viewers to look what lies beneath the surface. Her works merges the physical and the intuitive, drawing on abstract expressionism and surrealism.
Her works have been and continue to be exhibited in renowned museums and galleries, including the Albertina Museum in Vienna, the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.
